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A MODERN HISTORY'

NEW HAVEN

AND

EASTERN NEW HAVEN
COUNTY

By EVERETT G.'HILL

Editor of the New Haven Register

ILLUSTRATED

VOLUME I

NE>X- YORK -:- CHICAGO

THE S. J. CLARKE PUBLISHING COMPANY

1^18

(§\

A. U V

CONTENTS

CHAPTER I
LOOKING BACKWARD TO BEGINNINGS

THK LANDING OP THE QUINNIPIAC PILGRIMS — THE ROOTS OF NEW HAVEN AND
THE PROCESS OF ITS EARLY DEVELOPMENT — JOHN DAVENPORT 'S TRINITY OP
CHURCH AND STATE AND SCHOOL 1

CHAPTER II
THE MOTHER AND THE DAUGHTERS

THE PURCHASE OF THE TRACT WHICH WAS TO MAKE NEW HAVEN COLONY AND

THE CREATION PROM IT OP THE DAUGHTER TOWtNS THE BLOOD, SOCIAL AND

COMMERCIAL RELATIONS AS DEVELOPED THROUGH THE YEARS 11

CHAPTER III
THE DUAL DEVELOPMENT

THE COMMON ORIGIN OP THE TOWN AND THE COLLEGE IN DAVENPORT 's PLAN

THE VICISSITUDES OP THE COLLEGIATE SCHOOL IN ITS FOUtNDING AND EARLY
DAYS, AND THE NEW HAVEN-HARTPORD STRIPE OVER A SITE^ — THE PART OP
ELIHU YALE AND THE ESTABLISHMENT OP YALE COLLEGE IN NEW HAVEN ... 19

CHAPTER IV
THE YEARS OF DISCORD

THE CRUDE STRIPE OP TOWN AND GOWN — ITS SEQUEL IN THE MISUNDERSTAND- /

ING AND SEPARATION OP THE COMMUNITY AND THE UNIVERSITY 29

CHAPTER V
THE BEGINNING OF HARMONY

THE NEW ERA IN THE NEW CENTURY AND THE EMERGENCE OF YALE FROM ITS

CLOISTER 36

vi CONTENTS

CHAPTER VI
THE GOWN LAID ASIDE

THE YALE BICENTENNIAL CELEBRATION OF 1901 THE PARTICIPATION OF YALE

OFFICERS AND TEACHERS, GRADUATES AND 1JNDERGR.UJUATES IN THE RE-
LIGIOUS, SOCIAL AND CIVIC LIFE OF NEW HAVEN 38

CHAPTER VII
THE DOORS THROWN OPEN

THE SUNDAY OPENING OF THE Y.VLE SCIENTIFIC AND ART COLLECTIONS AND THE

WELCOME TO WOOLSEY HALL — YALe'S INVITATION OF THE PEOPLE TO HER

ATHLETIC FEASTS 44

CHAPTER VIII
THE SEAL OF THE UNION

THE PAGEANT OP 1916, ITS PREPARATION AND HISTORICAL CELEBRATION IN BAT-
TELL CHAPEL THE GREAT SPECTACLE AT THE BOWL 49

CHAPTER IX
THE OLD AND THE NEW

THE CONTRAST OF THE CENTURIES AND THE ELEMENTS THAT MAKE IT — A GEN-
ERAL GLIMPSE OF TWENTIETH CENTURY NEW HAVEN , 61

CHAPTER X
THE IDEAL NEW HAVEN

A REVIEW OP THE RESPECTS IN WHICH THE REPORT OF THE CIVIC IMPROVEMENT

COMMITTEE WOULD MAKE OVER THE CITY 74

CHAPTER XI
NEW HAVEN GREEN

ITS ORIGIN, OWNERSHIP AND PRESERVATION INTACT — ITS HISTORY AND ITS

DEVEIX)PMENT — ITS RELIGIOUS, EDUCATIONAL, CIVIC AND OTHER USES SO

CONTEXTS vii

CHAPTER XII
NEW HAVEN'S PARK SYSTEM

ITS MODERN DEVELOPMENT FROM EAST .\ND WEST ROCKS— THE INTERESTING

SYSTEM OF CITY SQUARES 92

■ CHAPTER XIII
NEW HAVEN'S CHARTERS

HISTORY AND PROGRESS AND DEV'ELOPMENT FROM 1784 TO 1917 CONSOLIDATION

OF TOWN AND CITY AND THE HOME RULE ACT RECENT REVISION EFFORTS . . . 100

CHAPTER XIV
NEW HAVEN'S CHURCHES

THE ORIGINAL CHURCH AND ITS DESCENDANTS — THE REPRESENTATIVES OF THE
CHURCH OF ENGLAND AND THE GROWTH OF ITS FORM OF WORSHIP IN A NEW
ENGLAND CITY Ill

CHAPTER XV
NEW HAVEN'S CHURCHES (Concluded)

THE EARLY AND LATER GROWTH OF THE METHODIST CHURCHES— THE BAPTIST

CHURCHES — THE GRE.VT RECORD OF THE CHURCH OF ROME THE JEWISH

CONGREGATIONS AND THEIR LEADERS — THE V^VLUABLE GROUP OF YOUNGER
CHURCHES 126

CHAPTER XVI
NEW HAVEN'S SCHOOLS

THEIR DEVEIXJPMENT AND PRESENT CONSTITUTION — THEIR EXCELLENT EQUIP-
MENT, FORCE AND OPERATION MISCELLANEOUS AND PRFV'ATE SCHOOLS 1H6

CHAPTER XVII
NEW HAVEN'S LIBRARIES

TARDY APPEARANCE OF A PUBLIC LIBRARY, AND ITS EARLY HISTORY — ERECTION

OF THE NEW BUILDINC THE PUBLIC LIBRARY'S BRANCHES AND USE 148

viii CONTENTS

CHAPTER XVIII
THE CIVIC DEVELOPMENT

ORIGIN AND WORK OP THE CIVIC FEDERATION — OLD AND NEW HISTORY OF THE

CHAMBER OF COMMERCE — SOME CONTRIBUTORY ORGANIZATIONS 158

CHAPTER XIX
MANUFACTURING IN NEW HAVEN

SOME RESPECTS IN WHICH NEW HAVEN WAS A PIONEER DE'VELiOPMENT AND

DESCRIPTION OF THE CITY 's INDUSTRIES 174

CHAPTER XX
THE NEW HAVEN MANUFACTURERS' EXHIBIT

CONCEPTION AND FORMATION OP THE FIRST PERMANENT DISPLAY OP ITS SORT IN

AMERICA — REVIEW OF SOME OF THE PRINCIPAL FEATURES IT PRESENTS 185

"^ CHAPTER XXI

THE YALE BOWL

THE NEED WHICH MOTHERED IT AND THE MAN WHO FATHERED IT — ITS CON-
STRUCTION, ITS DESCRIPTION AND ITS SUCCESS ITS UNEXPECTED RESOURCES. . 194

CHAPTER XXII
TRANSPORTATION AND COMMUNICATION

EARLY DEVELOPMENTS IN TURNPIKES — THE MOUTH OP AN INTERESTING CANAL

— STKiMBOAT AND RAILROAD LINES — NEW HAVEN AND THE TELEPHONE. . . . 203

CHAPTER XXIII
THE SOCIAL EVOLUTION

NEW HAVEN THE MELTING POT — RACES REPRE.SENTED AND THEIR DISTRIBUTION
IN THE CITY — THE PROCESS OP ASSIMILATION, IN NEW HAVEN AND THE
ADJOINING TOWNS 216

CONTENTS ix

CHAPTER XXIV
MAKERS OF MODERN NEW HAVEN

IN GENERAL PUBLIC SERVICE — MEN OP THE CHURCHES LEADERS IN EDUCATION

COURTS AND LAWYERS MEDICINE AND SOME OP THE PHYSICIANS — LEADERS

IN GOVERiNMENT AND POLITICS BANKS AND BANKERS NEWSPAPERS AND

PRINTERS M.VNUFACTURERS, MERCHANTS, ENGINEERS AND OTHERS 226

CHAPTER XXV
MILITARY NEW HAVEN

THE governor's FOOT GIWRD AND ITS .Uv^CIENT AND MODERN SERVICE THE

HORSE GUARDS AND THE INFANTRY COMPANIES — NEW HAVEN 'S PLACE IN
THE WAR SERVICE OF TODAY 251

CHAPTER XXVI
THE PART OP WOMAN

WOMEN AS INDIVIDUALS AND IN VARIOUS ORGANIZATIONS — THEIR REMARKABLE

CONTRIBUTION TO THE PREVENTION OF JUVENILE DEUNQUENCY THE

ACHIEVEMENTS OF THE SOCLIL SERVICE DANCE COMMITTEE 260

CHAPTER XXVII
FRATERNITIES AND CLUBS

THE ANCIENT ORDER OF M.\SONRY IN NEW HAVEN ODD FELLOWSHIP THE

KNIGHTS OF COLUMBUS, ITS HISTORY AND PRESENT WORK — FRATERNITIES IN
GENERAL SOCIAL CLUBS THE TRADES UNION 269

CHAPTER XXVIII
MERIDEN

COLONIAL ORIGINS AND HISTORY, ITS NAMING, INCORPORATION OF TOWN AND

CITY, LATER GROWTH AND DEVELOPMENT TO THE CITY OF TODAY 284

CHAPTER XXIX
MERIDEN (Continued)

CHURCHES, SCHOOLS, CIVIC AND SOCIAL PROGRESS — MEN WHO HAVE MADE MERI-
DEN. PHYSICIANS, LAWYERS, LEADERS IN LOCAL, STATE AND NATIONAL LIFE. . 290

X CONTENTS

CHAPTER XXX
MERIDEN (Concluded)

INTERESTING GROWTH AND PRESENT M.VNTJFACTURING GREATNESS OF THE "SIL-
VER CITY, ' ' A CHARACTERISTIC YANKEE MANUFACTURING TOWN ". 301

CHAPTER XXXI
ORANGE

EVOLUTION OF THE COLONLVL PARISH OF NORTH MILFORD INTO THE TOWN OF

ORANGE, AND THE CHARACTER OF A RARE F^VRMING COMMUNITY 308

CHAPTER XXXII
WEST HAVEN

THE SEPARATE COMMUNITY ON THE NEW IIA^'EN" SIDE OP ORANGE WHICH HAS

GROWN INTO A NEAR-CITY ORIGIN AND DEVELOPMENT OF THE AMUSEMENT

RESORT, SAVIN ROCK 313

CHAPTER XXXIII
WALLINGFORD

EARLY LIFE OF THE MOTHER TOWN OF MERIDEN AND CHESHIRE — ITS CHURCHES,

SCHOOLS AND SOME OF THE MEN WHO HAVE MADE IT 319

CHAPTER XXXIV
WALLINGFORD (Concluded)

MANUFACTURING AND INDUSTRI.AL HISTORY OF AN IMPORTANT CENTER OF THE

SILVER FABRICATING ART, AND ITS PRESENT DAY PROGRESS 325

CHAPTER XXIXV
BRANFORD

ORIGINS OF AN IMPORTANT OLD COLONIAL TOWN, AND THE EVOLUTION FROM

THEM OF A LIVELY, MODERN MANUFACTURING AND FARMING COMMUNITY. . . 330

CONTENTS xi

CHAPTER XXXVI
STONY CREEK

THE UNIQUE SHORE RESORT, THE CENTER OP THE QUARRY INDUSTRY, THE OYSTER

PRODUCING VILLAGE WHICH IS A PART OF THE TOWN OF BRANFORD 338

CHAPTER XXXVII
HAMDEN

TOWN OF MANY PARTS THAT ALMOST SURROUNDS NEW HAVEN, ANCIENT PLACE

OF MANUFACTURES, MODERN SUBURBAN AND AGRICULTURAL TOWN 342

CHAPTER XXXVIII
MOUNT CARMEL

THE INDEPENDENTLY FOUNDED AND DISTINGUISHED SECTION OF HAMDEN THAT

LIES IN THE SHADOW OF THE FAMOUS OLD "SLEEPING GIANT". . 348

CHAPTER XXXIX
CHESHIRE

THE FARMING AND INDUSTRIAL AND EDUCATIONAL COMMUNITY THAT WAS CARVED

OUT OF WALLINGPORD IN THE EARLY DAYS OF THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. . . 357

CHAPTER XL
NORTH HAVEN

EARLY OFFSHOOT OF THE NEW HAVEN COLONY, HOME OF DISTINGUISHED DIVINES,

MODERN MINGLING OF INDUSTRIAL AND AGRICl'LTURAL TOWN 363

CHAPTER XLI
EAST HAVEN

"east FARMS," ITS DEVELOPMENT, ITS GROWTH AND DIVISION AND ITS CHANGE
TO THE AGRICULTURAL TOWN AND SUBURBAN SETTLEMENT WHICH IT IS
. TODAY .- 368

xii CONTENTS

CHAPTER XLII
GUILFORD

THE INDEPENDENT ORIGIN YET NEW HAVEN AFFILIATION OF THE FOUNDERS, THE
ESTABLISHMENT, DEVELOPMENT AND CONSTRUCTION OF THE PLANTATION
OP MENUNKETUCK 374

CHAPTER XLIII
TWO SONS OF GUILFORD

FITZ-GREENE HALLECK, CONNECTICUT'S GREATEST POET, AND HIS WORK WIL-
LIAM HARRISON MURRAY, PREACHER, WRITER, DISCOVERER OF THE ADIRON-
DACKS AND THE PERFECT HORSE 383

CHAPTER XLIV
MADISON

EAST GUILFORD AND NORTH BRISTOL BEFORE THEIR SEPARATION FROM GUILFORD,
THEIR DEVELOPMENT AND HISTORY AS DIVIDED PARTS OP AN UNUSUAL CON-
NECTICUT TOWN 397

CHAPTER XLV
WOODBRIDGE

THE STORY OF THE ANCIENT "PARISH OF AMITY," AND OF THE ELEMENTS WHICH

MAKE THE FINE OLD TOWN ON THE HILLS OVERLOOKING NEW HAVEN 406

CHAPTER XLVI
NORTH BRAXFORD

NORTH FARMS, THE HISTORIC AND COLONIAL PART OF BRANFORD, THE TOWN OF
DEEP FOTTNDATIONS, HONORABLE RECORD AND SUBSTANTIAL MODERN
INDUSTRY 414

PREFACE

The rush and pressure of daily newspaper work is not conducive to that
leisure and spirit of research which must precede careful historical production,
and this must explain in part, though it may not excuse, the deficiencies of these
pages. Moreover, much ground has been covered in a brief period of time, and
the defects which may appear were inevitable. It will be obvious that this is not
an attempt to tell again the story of these towns in their past, already, in most
cases, told so well before. As to origins, no more has been attempted than to
pick up some threads which may bind together a story that is chiefly in the
present time. As a panorama of the "New Haven and Eastern New Haven
County" of today, with emphasis on certain significant features of them, these
pages are presented. The writer realizes their deficiencies by the usual historical
tests, and only hopes that their errors are chietly those of omission.

Even this would not have been possible without sulistantial aid from many
sources. The writer acknowledges his great indebtedness, in the construction
of the early chapters, to Edwin Oviatt's inspiring "Beginnings of Yale,"' a
work of the higliest historical value. In the chapters on later New Haven aid
has come from many sources, some of which are noticed by the way, but espe-
cially is credit due to the help of Charles E. Julin of the Chamber of Commerce.
The chapters on Meriden would not have V)een possible but for George Munson
Curtis's "Century of Meriden," the masterly record of that town. In addition,
for help from many friends, most of whom must remain unmentioned here, the
writer is deeply grateful.

E. G. H.
Hartford, CoxNEfTicrT, May 8, 1918.

Ill

A MODERN HISTORY OF NEW HAVEN AND
EASTERN NEW HAVEN COUNTY

CHAPTER I
LOOKING BACKWARD TO BEGINNINGS

THE LANDING OF THE QUINNIPIAC PILGRIMS THE ROOTS OP NEW HAVEN AND THE

PROCESS OF ITS EARLY DEVELOPMENT JOHN DAVENPORT 's TRINITY OF CHURCH

AND STATE AND SCHOOL

^Midway between where two mild raountaiu chaius, tapering down, the one
from far north and the other from the northeast, end abruptly in accented
heights close by Connecticut "s shore, has stood for nearly three centuries a
unique New- "World community. The adventurous and inquisitive Dutch pioneers,
who poked the noses of their shallops into more of our creek-mouths than we
know, had seen, long before English foot was set upon it, the red plain between
the sentinel rocks, which they had translated into their tongue as "Rodenburgh. "
It was a fair land of agricultural, commercial and maritime promise, and the
wonder is that the Dutch did not preempt it long before the English came, or
at least claim it when they came. It seems, however, that the Dutch, safely
separated by seventy-five miles of indistinctly trailed forest and marsh, never
troubled themselves about their newer neighbors until some years later when
those ambitious and grasping Englishmen came down and stirred them up — but
that is another story.

So the good ship Hector found no fort to threaten her progress when, on a
breezy April Friday in 1638, she fortunately missed the then uncharted rocks
off what is now Lighthouse Point, and entered the broad harbor of the Quin-
nipiac. Her 300 people were not right from England, however, and they were
not happening on this liarbor. For the Hector, with Pastor John Davenport
and Master Theophilus Eaton in joint command, had left London almost a year
earlier, and made her course directly for Boston. Somewhere in that section
their fancy had located their promised land. With but the vaguest ideas of the
extent of the new country, nothing short of the region of Pilgrim Plymouth

2 A MODERN HISTORY OF NEW HAVEN

or greater Boston seemed to meet their requirements. But they demanded
large room, as we shall see. It was not a town or a city, but a New World state
that was to be different from any other earth had known, that the ambitious
Davenport planned. As for Eaton, soon logically to be made governor with-
out the formality of an election, what he wanted was a place to found a
great trade metropolis. But both plans required space, and distance from
rivals. No such place was found in Massachusetts. The Reverend John Daven-
port, moreover, had other reasons for desiring to become, in a sense, lost in
the wilderness. Archbishop William Laud of London, his implacable foe, had
sworn that his hand should reach the rebellious Davenport, even in the New
World, and the latter was minded to get where the archbishop would forget him.

The Massachusetts neighbors, on their part, took another view of it. They
were not slow to discern in the Rev. John Davenport, and as well in the
substantial Theophilus Eaton, who had been a prosperous merchant in London
before ever he started on his New World venture, stuff for progressive citizens
such as the new colony needed. But neither of the leaders would listen to
blandishments. Like earlier pioneers of that Holy Writ which was their law,
and for similar reasons, they "sought a better country." Thej^ had some earthly
guidance. Then, as since, war was opening up new country. It was Captain
Stoughton, who had chased the doughty Pequot Indians down to the Connecticut
marshes, who was able to tell the questers some good things about the region
of the Quinnipiac. They had heard, too, of Dutch "Rodenburgh," and the
information so appealed to the practical Eaton that he determined to prospect.
He took a few of his best sailors, and probably in the good old Hector rounded
Cape Cod — then, in pacifie August, quite a different region from that which
the larger party must have found in the following March — and entered Long
Island Sound. Past rocky Stonington, past to-be-historic New London, past
that Saybrook Point which was later to play an important and almost dis-
astrous part in John Davenport's plans, he made straight for the mouth of the
Quinnipiac. He found what he wanted between the two red rocks, though it
must have been but an imperfect idea he got of the virgin forest and untracked
mai'sh. But his commercial eye saw its possibilities.

Eaton wasted no time. Leaving a few squatters, as it were, for the perilous
task of holding the ground until he could return with the larger party, he
sailed back to Boston. It seems to have been no twenty-four hour trip from
New Haven to Boston in those days, for it was impossible to get the party back
before winter — which was as well for their health, no doubt. New Haven
climate, as we may know, is more favorably introduced with spring than with
winter.

So it was not the Hector's first trip into Quinnipiac Harbor — that of April
13, 1638.* This landing, however, is accepted as the legitimate first. It seems
to have occurred to the respecters of signs in the party, somewhile they were
working their way up past Morris Cove or the Palisades, that the day was

* There is no little confusion as to this dite. Kvirlently this was O. S., which would
make it. by o\ir calendar. April 24, and the a-tnal landing the following day, April 25.

NEW HAVEN COLONY fflSTORIOAL SOCIETY BUILDING, NEW HAVEN

•

THE FOUNDERS 0? THIS TOW^

IV -2' " "G XSAR TKI 5 S POT,

ASSEMBLED HERE

ro^ --E WORSFIP OF GOD

r- -■■r,■,^ r-RST SUXD/W

TABLET MARKING SPOT OF FIRST WORSHIP, AT GEORGE AND COLLEGE STREETS,

NEW H.\VEN

AND EASTERN NEW HAVEN COUNTY 3

P'riday. Seeming to have come on a good place to anchor, they prevailed on
their leaders, who mayhap needed no great persuasion, to cast out some anchors
and wait for the next day.

But for the old maps with which the modern i-eader is plentifully furnished,
it might be difficult to api)reciate the location of that lauding. One has to travel
full seven city blocks seaward from that spot, in these days, to hnd anything
like navigable water. There is a modern, un-Puritan drugstore, at the time
of this writing, near the spot where they are said iirst to have set foot on the
red soil of Quiunipiac. For some blocks around — this being now somewhat
in the center of the motor vehicle supply district, there is more gasoline than
water. But in those days the harbor itself came almost to the edge of what is
now Hill Street, and nearly at a converging point entered it two creeks, one
from the direction of what is now State and Elm streets, and the other from
some point in the present region of George and High streets. It was up this
latter and larger creek that the Hector went as far as her navigatoi's deemed
prudent, the actual landing being from the ship's boats.

If our fancy is lively enough, we can imagine these black-cloaked, steeple-
hatted and sea-weary navigators, not as stepping out of their boats on to easy,
mossy shores, already greening under April's sun and rain, but as scrambling
up the high red clay banks of the narrow creek, laden with considerable house-
hold furniture as well as their clothes-chests. We have to imagine most of the
scene, for the authentic accounts are meager. They found the few "squatters"
Theophilus Eaton had left there the preceding fall to hold the land very glad
to see them, we may believe. These had been living in rudely roofed dugouts
on the banks of the creek, and with similar shelters, it appears, the newcomers
liad to content themselves that summer and probably through most of the next
winter. Close liy the creek, for the moment, was tlie center of New Haven. This
accounts for the fact that the first gathering of the Rev. John Davenport's
flock for religious service, which was on the day after they landed, was near
this northeast corner of the present George and College streets. There, since
1888, has stood a marble tablet suitably mai-king their first place of worship.

Superficially, this seems like the beginning of New Haven. But to under-
stand the story, we shall have to go further back by some forty years. We shall
find ourselves in that quaint old walled town of English Warwickshire which
Tennyson first introduced to us as the result of his wait for the train — the very
Coventry of Lady Godiva and Peeping Tom. For it is more than a coincidence
that there, in the closing years of the sixteenth century and the opening of the
next. John Davenport and Theophilus Eaton were boys together. And through
Theophilus Eaton, as will later appear, was to come the natural connection
of Elihu Yale with New Haven, and the name of Elihu Yale was to descend on
the New Haven college of John Davenport's — to him — unrealized dream.

It may seem a far cry from the time and circumstances in which John

4 A MODERN HISTORY OF NEW HAVEN

Davenport of Coventry and Oxford became a rebel against the rule of the
established church, to modern New Haven. But New Haven of today is a center
of Congi-egatioualism, and the spirit of New Haven's sort of Congregationalism
was born in John Davenport at Coventry. The later influences, at Oxford, in
London and in Holland as a refugee, which made John Davenport a pioneer filled
with the determination to find a spot so far from England and so remote from
the vengeful eye of the tyrannical Bishop Laud of London that in it he might
found a church-state after his own heart, it is not necessary to trace here.

With these troubles the less idealistic Theophilus Eaton had less concern.
He did, however, appreciate the possibilities for commercial opportunity which
the New World might offer, and he was glad enough to join in the Davenport
enterprise. It should not be supposed that there was no religious fervor in
Eaton. It was not omitted from the constitution of any strong men of his land
and time. He never demurred, as far as we can learn, at the churehly nature
of the state of which he was to become the first governor. It was before the
party sailed, not on the way over, that a covenant was drawn up and signed
by some representative of each of the groups in the company, somewhat plainly
defining the character of the unique government which it was proposed to es-
tablish. The most we know of it is from the manner in which it worked out in
New Haven's later history. It worked out its own destruction, by the way, for
from reasons inherent in the very democratic air of the New World, it was out of
the question for so utter an autocracy to outlast the vei-y beginnings of the
primitive settlement.

However, John Davenport and Theophilus Eaton must have been good
friends, or at least very greatly in harmony in their confidence that the church-
state was a sure foundation. If there was any clash of authority in their joint
leadership, the record of it has not come down. The pastor was ruler, judge
and executor in things spiritual ; the governor had the same authority in things
temporal. But often it must have been hard to find the dividing line between
the two. The laws were the laws of j\Ioses, and pastor and governor, about equally
versed in them, were their joint interpreters. There was no participation in
the government except by church members in good and regular standing — the
regenerate who had brought forth works meet for repentance. They took their
religion very seriously. They were so intolerant, not only here but in other
parts of New England, of those who chanced to differ from them in matters of
religious belief or practice, that they made the persecution of the churchmen
of Old England look anaemic. On week days Governor Eaton's court sat — and
considering the smallness of the population it had a busier time than our police
court of today — and dealt with those against whom, it was natural from the
critical spirit of the times, there should be abundant accusations. There was
swift hearing, stern judgment — and there was no appeal. It was not always a
meekly received judgment, for the early settlers were human, and the New World
bred a sense of justice that could not always have matched the Davenport-Eaton
sort. It is a ti'emendous trilrate to the genius of the joint arbiters of this strange
republic that for thirty years they maintained it in a fashion, and that its down-

AND EASTERN NEW HAVEN COUNTY 5

fall was hastened by circumstances which they could not control — circumstances
which came in considerable measure fi'om without. But it matched the Cal-
vinistic theology which Davenport brought with hiui, which his successors main-
tained for a good deal more than thirty years.

Meanwhile, the town had shaped itself physically in a manner that cannot
but be intei-esting to us. Some crude assistance it had, to be sure. Modern
dwellers in New Haven who often have wondered why the central streets follow
no cardinal points of the compass may tind the answer in the vagaries of those
early wandering creeks which have long since hidden their courses in shame.
Coming, the one from the region of what is now upper Geoi'ge Street, its course
about southeasterly, and the other from "somewhere out State Street," in a
general southwesterly direction, they made a sort of rough right angle at the
point where they entered the harbor head. This natural angle seemed to John
Broekett, a young London surveyor who same over with the Davenport-Eaton
party, better bounds than the points of the compass on which to lay out a city.
So he marked out by map— the actual going by land was so far from being
good that the map was easier — a towii of nine equal sciuares, one-half of a square
mile in total extent. George Street and the West Creek were its southwestern
.boundary; State Street and the East Creek its southeastern. On the northwest
what was to be York Street limited it. To the northeast was what is now Grove
Street, its name more than adeqiiately foretold by the interminable virgin forest
which then began only a little north of Elm.

These boundaries probably were not imaginary. The settlers had learned
before they came to expect conflict from foes without as well as from their
natural inward enemies of original sin. Against the latter they made it one of
their early tasks to erect a ileeting House where Pastor Davenport might give
them weekly — or more frequent — treatment for their souls. Their first task,
however, was to enclose the nine squares with a substantial stockade. Even though
trees wei-e plentiful and the digging was good (there is not in the whole nine
squares today a rock or a stone, and proliably there were very few in those days")
jthis could have been no light undertaking. To set close together two miles of
sharpened palings, substantial logs well planted in the ground and extending
seven feet above it, was a labor of spade and post and pestle that could hardly
have been light, even for many hands. The evidence is conflicting, but the
weight of it favors the belief that New Haven had this protecting stockade.
The energetic Eaton, if not the provident Davenport, would liavc seen to that.

Massive gates, closed and chained at "curfew," we may well believe, led
through this stockade from the wild woods or marsh or meadows without. But
he who entered for the first time noticed that the fencing habit was not limited
to the outer wall. The early New Englanders had brought from across the sea
the notion that "a man's house is his castle" needed emphasis. Each of the
eight private squares was set off from the streets by five-foot palings. There was
some economy and lighter substance in these barriers, for they were of split logs
and a little less dense, perhaps, in their formation, but they served efifectually
the purposes of protection and privacy. ^Moreover, as fast aS each householder

6 A MODEKN HISTORY OF NEW HAVEN

was able to define the limits of his private "lot," he marked it by aii unmis-
takable rail fence. We may well believe that there was much more thought, for
a good many of those early years, of keeping the bounds than there was of
keeping the lawns.

Only the central square, which we call ' ' The Green, ' " which they called the
"Market Place," was unfeneed. Its idea, of course, was from the Old World
Market Place. But there is said to have been an interesting reason why the
early fathers of New Haven devoted a ninth of their city to that open space
for whose preservation we praise them now. Davenport himself, it seems, was
a Millenarian, and such was his positive leadership that many of his followers
nuist have shared whatever belief he had. That is, he expected not only the
second coming of Christ, but the arrival of "a thousand of his saints" with him.
Obviously, there must be some place where the thousand, plus the much less than
a thousand of dwellers in New Haven, could conveniently gather. If that was
their idea in making the Market Place so large, they safely exceeded their
retiuirements, for New Haven in its twenty -eighth decade has often seen several
times ten thousand people gathered on the lower half of the Green.

This old Market Place, inevitably, was the heart of the life of those early
days, as it is destined to be for many generations afterward, and may still
be in generations yet ahead of us. As near to the exact center of it as they
could guess, John Davenport hastened to erect his first Meeting House, the direct
ancestor of the stately Center Church of today. There was little of stateliness
or even of architecture about that first edifice. It was uncomely without and
barren within. Its frame, rough-hewn from some of the very trees, no doubt,
which had been cleared from the forest of the forming Mai'ket Place to make
room for it, was as I'oughly covered with uneven boards, that barely kept out the
rain and snow^ and not as successfully the cold. Its hipped roof rose sharply from
its four square sides to a point in the center, which was surmounted by the
square watchman's turret from wOiich the town drummer beat the call to worship.
Above that it rose to a blunt steeple. Within were the raised pulpit and sounding
board, and probaT)ly the hard, backless, most uncomfortable oak-slab seats which
we know the churches of that era had. But for years it was the most imposing
building in the town, and always it and its successors have been the center of
New Haven's religious life, performing, even for the large city in which it dwells
today, a distinct and acknowledged community service.

It was far from being "The Green" in those early days, that great central
square. Not until more than a century later did it begin to assume that order
which marks it today. When the first Meeting House was erected, the square to
the northwest of it was still irregularly wooded. In the spot that had been
cleared were still the straggling stumps of the trees, wdth leaf-strewn sand
between. Most of the space between the Meeting House and Church Street —
then "The Mill Highway" — was a swamp, crossed by two log causeways. The
Meeting House was erected in 1639 or 1640, and the following year the first
apparent move toward public education was made in the building of a school-
house, to the northward midway between the house of worship and Elm Street.

AND EASTERN NEW HAVEN COUNTY 7

The only other building purpose to which the Market Place was put for several
years was for a watclihouse, a "gaol, " and the necessary stocks and pillary, which
stood in a group slightly northwest of the Meeting House. The burial ground,
which became necessary even in that fii-st year, was, as we notice from its his-
toric remnant, directly in the I'ear of the church.

Dwelling houses, more or less pretentious, but all limited by the rude facili-
ties of the time, grew apace with the public buildings. It seems likely that there
were as many as forty-two buildings of various sorts as early as 1640. Governor
Eaton's house, the most substantial in the colony, stood on the_ north side of
Elm Street, a little above where Orange Street ci'osses it now. Mr. Davenport's
was very near what is now the southeast corner of Elm and Orange. The other
settlers had disposed themselves as their resources warranted, in buildings
mostly around the Market Place side of the original nine squares, the extension
being farther northward than in any other direction. There was considerable
seaport activity, with the two landing places, one up George Street a "block"
farther than the original landing on the creek bank, and the other on the East
Creek near the corner of State and Chapel. There was a flour mill out near
East Rock. There were clay pits, the primitive brickyards, out north State
Street. There were many farms all around the edges. But these were daylight
activities. It was several years before any but the pioneers who started new
settlements "in the wilderness" made bold to build or spend their nights outside
of the stockade.

The development of the years that followed is not, in the main, a part of a
' ' modern history. ' ' Leaving that as a ta.sk well done by others, let us turn now
to certain beginnings which have significant prophecy of an important modern
relation.

Ill

John Davenport did not conceive his ideal of church and state complete
without the higher school to make a trinity. An Oxford scholar, with the best
education that Old England could give, it was inevitable that he should include
in his ambition for a New World paradise a strong and advanced school system.
In 1637 at Boston he was one of the twelve leading men of the colony to estab-
lish what later was to be Harvard College, under the authority of the General
Court. Through that experience, the idea which he had took practical shape
for the new state which he planned to found. It is probably that, when he took
with him on his pilgrimage to Quinnipiac the young Ezekiel Cheever, and later
when he established that able young educator in the cabin schoolhouse at Grove
and Church streets, Davenport thought his college was beginning. It was another
step of progress when he secured the erection, some six years later, of the school-
house on the Market Place. It stood near the church for other reasons than
convenience. It was to be in literal truth a church school. It was to supplement
for six days, with a teacher in utter harmony with the preacher, the instruction of
the Meeting House on the Sabbath day. It was to lead to a higher or collegiate

8 A MODERN HISTORY OF NEW HAVEN

school, which was, as it is easy to read in the history of the school that did
come, tirst of all au institution for the training of men for the Congregational
ministry.

But Ezekiel Cheever, excellent teacher that he was, had some educational
ideas of his own, and they did not harmonize with Davenport's. He did not
agree that all the classics worth knowing were bound up in the Bible, or that
the chief end of man was to learn Calvinistic theology. So he parted company
with John Davenport and New Haven in 1647, greatly to the loss of the latter
and greatly to the advantage of Ipswich in the Massachusetts colony, and later
to Cambridge and Boston, in which communities he continued his later remark-
able educational career. John Davenport would have advanced his college much
faster if he had kept the brilliant Cheever, but he must have his way.

There is little to be said of the progress of John Davenport's educational
plans in the remaining decade of his disheartening struggle in New Haven.
His church-state republic was doomed to fail, and with it was inevitably bound
up, as could easily be seen, his sort of college. But it is worthy to record that
he planted in the minds of his associates of New Haven and the Connecticut
colony the germ of a college in New Haven. That was just as much a part of
. the New Haven construction, it seems, as the Meeting House or the Market Place.
In the yeai's that followed, though it seemed almost certain that the college, when
established, was to be elsewhere than in New Haven, perhaps far removed from
it, there was in the subconscious mind of leaders like James Pierpont, successor
to John Davenport in the old New Haven church, and the others who formed
with him what fortiinately was the ma.jority in the control of the collegiate
school's affairs, the thought that it was inseparable from New Haven. It was
a naturally inseparable alliance, more of state and college than of state and
church, which the plan of John Davenport involved. Yale became a part of New
Haven, in fact, when the first pastor set the first teacher at work in his paternal-
ized community, and then was formed a partnership which was to have, in today's
era, a meaning that could not have been dreamed of then.

It was an even longer path to the goal than the years seem to make it. That
was a strange battle of events and wils which took place from 1640 to 1716,
when the collegiate school wavered between New Haven, Branford. Killing-
worth, Saybrook, Wethersfield and Milford, and the story has been well told
elsewhere. Early in the course of it came the downfall of that impossible Utopia
which Davenport dreamed of at Quinnipiac. It was partly due to Davenport's
lack of understanding of human nature, partly due to forces which he could not
control. The stern God whom he preached had not set His favor, it would seem,
on the man-planned state. Probably He was not sufficiently consulted in its
construction. The church, indeed, survived by reason of compulsion of all the
support of the people, hut the educational plans, as we have seen, went sadly
agley, and the ship of state went on political and commercial rocks instead of
into a fair harbor. The New Haven gi'oup, weakened by the readiness of many
settlers to find a freer air elsewhere, simply could not stand alone, and the
others, with little love in their hearts for the autocracy of Davenport and

AND EASTERN NEW HAVEN COUNTY 9

Eatou, left it to its fate. That fate was to be absorbed in the hirger ConneL'tieut
colony instead of remaining a colony in itself.

Others of the bright dreams that came down the coast on board the old
Hector had been shattered. New Haven has, as we have lived to see, commercial
and industrial possibilities such as canny old Theojihilus Eaton never from the
highest pinnacle of his ambition looked down upon, but that was only the middle
of the seventeenth century. The stream of trade to and from London continued
to flow to and from Boston, as it had done before. The New Haven commercial
aspirants, who had built a small fleet of ships for the foreign trade, were
obliged to content themselves with coasting to Boston or New- Amsterdam, or
occasional trips to the Bernuidas or Barbadoes. If they had kept away from
the region of New Amsterdam, they would have done better. That fated
"Delaware" company was formed, and set up a trading post on Dutch territory.
The Dutch promptly cleared these usurping Yankees out of their possessions,
and the promoters of the Delaware company, in addition to having their scheme
for wealth abruptly terminated, lost the £1,000 they put into it — which was a
heavy disaster for New Haven in 1640.

It was the l>eginning of bad luck, and it was the beginning of ti'ouble with
the Dutch. The wonder is that the latter were so considerate as to refrain from
coming up to New Haven and annexing "Rodenburgh" to New Amsterdam — a
thing they might easily have done. Eaton and his associates purposed, however,
to redeem their fortunes liy a trading venture to England with the " Create
Shippe, " but that w-ent down at sea, and £5,000 — about all the free capital that
there was left in the colony — went down with it. After that they were very
meek, and seem to have taken what Heaven — and hard work — sent them, keeping
their feet on the ground.

But all this while, and even when, thirty years after he first sailed up the
clay-banked creek, disappointed John Davenport took his books and beliefs to
Boston, burying his ambitions behind him, fate was laying the foundation for
the better union that was to be. When in 16-37 Theophilus Eaton joined his
fortunes with his old playmate of the earlier days at Coventry for an excursion
to the New World, he long had been a prosperous merchant at London, and was
married to his second wife. She had been the widow of David Yale of Denbigh- •
shire, and by him had two sons, Thomas and David Yale. Both came over on
the Hector. The former was the father of Elihu Yale. There was also a
daughter, who later married the Edward Hopkins of the original Davenport
party. Hopkins lost his heart to Hartford before the New Haven settlement-
was made, however, and prospering greatly there, returned to London in 16.54
with a considerable fortune, which he seems to have added to later. He was
the patron of the Hopkins Grammai' School in New Haven. John Davenport
had asked him to give his money for the college project instead, and had he done
so, this might have been Hopkins instead of Yale College.

It was not until sixty-four years later that the son of Thomas Yale, Boston
born, London trained, made fabulously wealthy as an East India Company-
protected plunderer in Old ^ladras, and later governor of the English trading

10 A MODERN HISTORY OF NEW HAVEN

♦

post, Fort St. George, was moved by the strange iuterventioii of Cottou Mather
and the perfectly iinderstandable urging of New Haven's London agent, Jeremiah
Dummer, to part with a modicum of liis wealth for the struggling collegiate I

school. After a stormy sixteen years in exile, it had become safely settled in
New Haven. In Elihu Yale's gift — small enough compensation for the immortal
gain of giving name to the college — it is possible to see rather the fulfillment
of fate's pui-pose than the great enrichment of Yale. The securing of funds
which made possible the winning of their fight to bring the college to New Haven
had not been the work of a minute. It was gradually that the campaign of ~
Duinmer and the others on the other side had led up to Elihu Yale. But looking
back now, it is easy to receive the impression that the alliance of New Haven
and Yale was predestined from the fir.st.

CHAPTER II
THE MOTHER AND THE DAUGHTERS

THE PURCHASE OF THE TRACT WHICH WAS TO MAKE NEW HAVEN COLONY AND THE
CRE.4TI0N FROM IT OF THE DAUGHTER TOWNS THE BLOOD, SOCIAL AND COMMER-
CIAL RELATIONS AS DEVELOPED THROUGH THE YEARS

It must not be supposed that Pastor Davenport and Governor Eaton expected
to make a state out of what is now included in the territorial limits of New Haven.
Very earlj' in the progress of the settlement at Quinnipiae the process of expan-
sion began. It continued until the land actually owned — as ownership went in
those days — by the Davenport-Eaton Company, included, oddly enough, almost
all but one section of that part of New Haven County with which the present
history deals. This fact establishes without argument the proposition that New
Haven is in a true sense the mother of all the towns included in what we have
called "eastern New Haven County."

This ownership was not acquired in any in-egular way. Thei-e was no seizui-e
by force of the lands of the Indians, though the bargain seems to have been, as
to its terms, one of those one-sided transactions which strike our business sense
today as huraerous. When the settlers came they found here a peaceable tribe
of Indians, the remnant, at least, of the tribe of the Quiunipiacs. If Captain
Adrian Black, Dutch trader, who found -and named "Rodenburgh" in 1614,
had been minded to come ashore and take possession, he might have shown less
consideration for its nominal first owners than did the more diplomatic Theophi-
lus Eaton. (Though for that matter, that worthy did not impoverish himself
to give satisfaction, as we shall see.) The Quinnipiacs were minded to live
peaceably with their white neighbors. Doubtless they were glad enough of the
coming of courageous, well armed white men, whose residence might be expected
to keep at a distance their old enemies, the Mohawks and Pequots. From what
we can learn, the advent of the Davenport party, of whose 300 about fifty were
adult males, probal)ly well armed after the manner of the times, did have a
salutary efiPect on the warlike tribes who had caused so much trouble to the
settlers further north and east.

It probably was early in their first year in Quinnipiae that Governor Eaton
and his associates drew up a verj- formal treaty of purcha.se, by which Moman-

12 A MODERN HISTORY OF NEW HAVEN

guiii, saeliem of the Quimiipiaes, agreed to the best of his signatory ability to
ensure to the settlers the right and fee simple to hold and possess and hand
down the territory which is now the town of New Haven. There was much
formal verbiage, but what seems to interest us most is the compeusatiou agreed
upon. There is supposed to have been in the possession of the members of the
Davenport-Eaton party, when they landed in New Haven, wealth to the amount
of some £36,000. The cash of that amount was not seriously depleted by this
which the settlers agi-eed to turn over to the Quinnipiacs' treasury as compeusa-
tiou for this land, and which, we suppose, was well and properly delivered :

Twelve coats of English trucking cloth.

Twelve alchemy spoons.

Twelve hatchets.

Twelve hoes.

Twenty-four knives.

Pour cases French knives and scissors.

We have no means of knowing just how much territory was included in this
sale. Certainly it covered all that we know as New Haven, and probably much
more to the north and west. Nor can w^e tell just how much cash this interesting
lot of merchandise would have fetched on the market. It may be worth noticing
that of the real estate thus transferred the ]\Iarket Place alone, The Green as we
now know it, is now estimated to have a market value of $3, .500, 000. But that was
'many years ago.

Theophilus Eaton looked ahead, and it is not unreasonable to suppose that
he had a canny sense of the possible appreciation of real estate in such a great
New World commercial metropolis as he proposed to create here. At any rate
he must have known that the buying would never be any more favorable.
Presently he found Sachem Montowese, son of Chief Sowheag, and his associate
Sausenunck, who also had some land to sell. This second transaction was a
triumph that put the first in the shade. Naturally, suburban land must go at
lower rates. So the Eaton speculators acquired of ilontowese, apparently with
less documentary formality, a tract extending sulistantially ten miles northward
from the original purchase. Eastward it extended for eight miles from the
Quinnipiac River toward the great river of Connecticut, and westward of the
Quinnipiac five miles toward the Hudson. And for this considerable tract of
something like 130 square miles Eaton and his associates paid "eleven coats of
trucking cloth and one coat of English cloth" — with the assorted hardware
left nut.

This transaction was completed on December 11, 1638. By studying the
territory thus acquired we may under.stand better how much of a state was
created for New Haven, and how truh% in the course of resulting events. New
Haven became the mother of the communities to the north and east, and in
some measure to the west.

For in this tract we shall find Hamden, North Haven, East Haven, Wood-
bridge, all but the western section of Orange, Wallingford, Cheshire and the

AND EASTEKN NEW HAVEN COUNTY 13

lower part of Merideu, Branford aud North Branford. This accounts for
practically all of the county included in this group except Guilford, which,
though settled independently, in a sense, was not less a daughter of New Haven.
This had been purchased from Colonel George Fenwick, a part of his acquisition
from Uncas, the Mohegan sachem.

Though the settlers drove sharp bargains with the Indians in the matter of
purchase, as it seems to us, they did not insist upon immediate possession. The
thousand or so of the Quiuuipiacs, and such of the Montowese braves and the
Mohegans as the Mohawks and the Pequots had not driven out, were permitted
to use the still unimproved laud for happy hunting grounds pretty much as
they pleased. It was this cordial agreement, which seems, at least as far as New-
Haven and its district w'as eoncei-ned, to have existed until "the last of the
]\Iohegans" passed on to meet the Great Spirit, that added greatly to the lore
and legend of those early times, as well as helped to keep the family of whites
united.

"Quiunipiac" seems to have suited the settlers well enough as a name for
their new commonwealth for a year or tw-o after their foundation. Just how
the change came about we are not sure, but it was in 1639 that the Rev. Henry
"Whitfield, with his group of twenty-five jiilgrinis from Kent and Surrey counties
in England, stopped at Quinnipiac to see his old neighbors before going on to
(iuilford. Perhaps he had not wholly decided where to go until he got their
advice. It is said that his .ship was the first to enter the mouth of the Quin-
nipiac itself, aud that he was so impressed l)y the harI)or that he called it "a
Faire Haven." That name has stuck as applied to that locality. It seems not
entirely clear how the settlement of John Davenport and Theophilus Eaton came
to be called New Haven, but so it was formally christened in the town coui't in-
the following year.

It was in July of that same 1639 that the Rev. Henry AVhitfield and his
party arrived at Guilford, which they for a time called by its Indian name
llenunketuek. Though in some degree of independent origin, they were willing
to consider themselves a branch of the New Haven settlement. This ]\Ienunke-
tuck extended eastward from what is now the "West River to the Hammonassett,
and northward to the present limits of the county. The "Whitfield party,
presently enlarged by later arrivals from England, soon spread to East Guilford,
later Madison, and from there across the Hammonassett to Killingworth, now
Clinton. In this way was created the relation of New Haven with the original
home of Yale, for the Rev. Abraham Pierson and his group had a distinct af-
filiation with the older settlement on the Quinnipiac. Menunketuck was renamed
Guilford in 1643, and East Guilford became ]Madison in 1826.

But before this Abraham Pierson. father and son, turned up at Branford.
Branford and North Branford were a part of the New Haven purchase from
^Montowese. It was in 1643 that a part}' of uon-eonformists from "Wethersfield

14 A MODERN HISTORY OF NEW HAVEN

secured a grant of the Eaton purchase of Totoket, and the following year they
were joined there by the Rev. Abraham Pierson the elder, who had come from
Boston by way of Southampton, Long Island. It is possible that Pierson the
younger, who was to be the first president of Yale, was born in Branford. From
the first it was much of a New Haven community, being settled under the di-
rection of Davenport's town. The elder Pierson was an associate of John
Davenport, and shared his views on church and government. And Branford
was to be the scene, as it turned out, of the actual foundation of the Collegiate
.school at the meeting of the ministers there in 1701. Abraham Pierson, though
he was to have a sojourn m New Jersey meanwhile, was on his return to Con-
necticut to shepherd the Killingworth church, to be the school's first rector.

What was originally Walliugford occupied a considerable portion of the
northern part of that tract procured from Montowese for the dozen precious
coats. It was settled in 1669 in somewliat intimate relations with New Haven,
being, as we are told, a village of the greater town. The following year it was
named Walliugford, and made a town in its own right in 1672. Out of this
.section we have also Cheshire, which was settled as "West Farms" of Walling-
foi'd, and the next new town to be created out of the section. Cheshire set up
business for itself in May, 1780.

Woodbridge was a part of the original New Haven tract, sucli of it as was
not inlierited from Milford. It has from the first been a good deal of a "church-
state" of its own, first being known as "the parish of Amity," and receiving
its later name from the Rev. Benjamin Woodbridge, its first minister. Its
relation with New Haven has been notably intimate. Its commanding hills
were ever attractive to city dwellers who sought the heights, and for the past
few decades Woodbridge has been increasingly favored as a suburban residence
by the people of New Haven. Today its fine old farmhouses are interspersed
with the considerably more pretentious homes of original Woodbridgeites who
have expanded and come back, or of discriminating New Haveners wlio realize
\Voodbridge's beauty, health and blessing.

Just acro.ss the Quinnipiae used to be East Haven — "East Farms" of tlie
old settlers. Until 1701, it was substantially a jiart of New Haven, though the
overflow in this direction doubtless began very early in the history of tlie mother
community. That which is .still known as "Fair Haven East" was the beginning
of the East Haven village. It was not until 1785 that it was incorporated as
a separate town. As late as 1881 the Quinnipiae River was still the western
boundary of East Haven. Then w'hat are now known as Fair Haven East,
]\lorris Cove and Lighthouse Point were set off to New Haven, and are now its
Fourteentli and Fifteenth wards. With the growtli of New Haven eastward
and the growth of East Haven westward the break between the two has been
almost filled, and East Haven has of late years become highly popular as a
suburban residence place, so that the intimacy of relation between the two
towns approaches that of unity.

It seems impossible to leave New Haven in any direction without finding
oneself in Hamden. In the old days, also, Hamden was very much on tlie edges

AND EASTERN NEW HAVEN COUNTY 15

of New Haven. That part of it nearest the city received the overflow early,
as the thrifty farmers, getting over their fear of the Indians, desired to live
on or near their farms. But it was 1785 before Hamden, whose name was a
modification of that of the English patriot, John Hampden, became incorporated
as a town. Mount Carmel, which still has many characteristics distinguishing
it from the larger community — or rather group of communities — to the south-
west of it, was a distinct village some time before that. As it stands todaj',
Hamden is made up, in addition to Mount Carmel, of the more or less distinct
villages of Hamden Plains, Highwood, Whitneyville and Centerville, but all
of them have a real and increasing connection with the parent city.

The venturesome William Bradley was a pioneer in making North Haven a
distinct community as early as 16-10. His settlement was, however, considerably
south of the North Haven which one reaches toda.y after a ride of three-quarters
of an hour in an electric car. It was, in fact, only barely beyond the boundaries
of the present New Haven territory. The settlement began, like the others, with
the farm expansion idea. North Haven was "North Farms" until about the
time that East Haven, Woodbridge and Hamden became independent towns.
There seems to have been a definite recognition of the growth of the family in
1785, and a naming of the children. It was then that North Haven was
incorporated.

We have seen how Wallingford was settled in 1669 with more land than it
really knew what to do with. Before that the Hartford overflow had brought
some pioneers from the north to what was the upper section of the present
Meriden. It appears that the boundary line l)etween Hartford and New Haven
counties was somewhat wavering at that time, and the part of Meriden settled
by Jonathan Gilbert and Capt. Daniel Clark was then claimed by Hartford
County. It was, however, only the upper part of the present Meriden. The
southern and larger part was the "North Farms" of what wa.s then greater
Wallingford. Meriden, therefore, seems to have been settled from both direc-
tions. But we may find considerable warrant in the fact that it was ultimately
included in New Haven County for concluding that the New Haven influence
was much the greater. Meriden in recent years has grown to an individual
importance that makes it independent of either New Haven or Hartford, but
if we go back to beginnings we are justified in recognizing it as largely New
Haven in its origin and affiliations.

Orange, "so near and yet so far" from New Haven, has also a divided origin.
To a large extent it is still as divided as that origin. Some day, perhaps, there
will be a city of Orange, but today there is an Orange and a West Haven (not
to mention Savin Rock), as there was in the latter part of the seventeenth
century a village of West Haven and a village of North Milford. The explana-
tion of this is the very natural one that the former was settled as an overflow
of farmers from New Haven, and the latter as an overflow of farmers from
Milford. The first was wholly a New Haven migration, and the second was
partly so. Orange and West Haven, especially the latter, have with New Haven

16 A MODERN HISTORY OF NEW HAVEN

today the iucreasing suburban residence conneetiou, but preserve a distiuet
community individuality.

The two youngest towns in the eastern part of the county owe their apparent
youth to belated incorporation. One finds no lack of evidences of age in Madison.
Some of the Henry Whitfield party may have gone, the very year they landed,
on as far as Hammonassett, or what is locally known as "Scotland," which
localities seem to have been settled earlier than what is called the center. East
Guilford grew up contemporaneously with Guilford, both being, as has been
noticed, under the motherly sponsorship of New Haven, and reckoned a part of
the New Haven colony. Madison was incorporated and named in 1826.

North Branford had a similar experience as the upper part of Totoket, being
an overflow from the southern part of the town, and only slightly younger. It
was 1831, however, before it was recognized and incorporated as a town,
though it did not then change its name.

Ill

We may be sure that John Davenport regarded the whole of the first and
second purchases from the Indians as included in his church-state. And with
or without reason, he probably considered Guilford as in a way under his
authority. In the early conception, then, practically all of the section of New
Haven County which we have been considering was one community. All but the
people of the Guilford gi'oup, and some of those, were from the New Haven
settlement. There was much of common interest and something more than blood
relationship, through tlie whole section. We should not, with our facility of
communication, think twenty-five miles a great distance now, but some of us do.
It is probable that from New Haven to East Guilford, though almost a day's
journey on horseback over the bridle paths of 1645 or 1660, seemed less to them
than it does to us. There was frequent visiting between the communities, and
even a trip to Saybrook, far beyond the limits of this territory, seemed worth
much more than the trouble.

So the strength of the relationship between the mother and the daughter
towns was not weakened as the years passed. New Haven was their market place,
in several senses. The custom of "going to New Haven to trade" is older than at
first we think. The ambition of Saybrook at the other end to become a metropolis
was short lived. New Haven's dream of greatne.ss, for that matter, was long
delayed in fulfillment, but for all that New Haven was the only place to get
the things the people needed, and the place where they could dispose of what they
had to sell. The natural relationships of origin liecame strengthened by others
very real to a people who, with all their religious spirit and idealism, did not
neglect to "look after the main chance."

New Haven came to have a still greater hold on the country around with
the development of its second century. There the Collegiate school, after a
checkered early career which had isvolved Branford, Killingworth, Saybrook
and Milford— not to mention Wethersfield— settled definitely, in 1716, as Yale

AND EASTERN NEW HAVEN COUNTY 17

College in New Haveu. And what able-minded youth in all those towns did not
at some time cherish the hope of studying under Rector Williams or Clap,
or the even then famous Tutor Jonathan Edwards, in that great, blue-painted,
awe-inspiring building at the corner of Chapel and College streets? And in
later years, as the "" Brick Row" grew to a quadrangle, Woolsey, Porter and
Dwigiit were names that called to the ambition of learning. The graduate list
of Yale is an impressive proof of the hold which this institution has had from
the first on the young men of the daughter towns of New Haven. Such ties as
these do not diminish with the years.

But not all the boys of Branford and Guilford and Wallingford and Meriden
who looked toward New Haven had their eyes on the Campus. New Haven
did strike its commercial gait in good time, and golden opportunities grew.

A veiy absorbing tale could be told, if there were not so many other things
to tell, of the fibre from the surrounding towns that came to the making of the
mother community's uplrailding in business and commerce and industry. With
the builders, of course, came the workers. New Haven was the laud of oppor-
tunity. It had, particularly after 1820, when it finally took its place as the
leading city of Connecticut, the fa.scination of the metropolis. They came to
make it fi-om the daughter towns, and brought to it their best and most pro-
gressive stuff. Fortunate is that city whose foundations and early superstructure
are thus made.

There came to be a reciprocal movement, in time. It so happens, as we shall
see, that the coast towns of this section of New Haven County, with their
strangely fascinating variety of shoi'e and island and inlet, form an important
summer playground, not only for Connecticut, but for regions farther away.
It was not New Haven, strangely enough, that first discovered the shore of East
Haven. Branford. Guilford and Madison, but New Haven was not slow to take
notice. Then followed a rivalry between the summer shore seekers of Watei'-
bury, Hai'tford, New Haven, Buffalo, New York and points beyond to improve
this playground. The story of today tells itself in an almost continuous chain
of summer settlements along the coast from South End to Haramonassett, which
bring to some of these towns a summer population greater in itself than the
winter rating of the census. To this New Haven gives its full share, and it
all helps to keep green the old time relationship.

Again, as the years have pas.sed, the sons of the country towns have come back.
Prosperous New Haven business men have reclaimed or repurchased the well
nigh abandoned farms of their early days, and are using them for summer
homes or are running them for practical profit. And their example is con-
tagious. The "back to the land" movement is having its results here. The
wealtli of Woodbridge has already been mentioned. Others have discovered the
beauty of North Branford, the fruit raising possibilities of Cheshire, the fer-
tility of East Haven and Branford and Guilford and Madison. As Meriden
has grown in size and wealth, it has become a center in itself, with its own
suburban reach. But between all the towns there exists and grows a tie which
is accounted for liy something more substantial than county boundaries.

Vol. T— •_'

18 A MODERN HISTORY OF NEW HAVEN

Modern cominunicatioii has come in time to further strengthen the chain.
The rude bridle paths to the north and the east in the colony's early days were
not unused, but comparatively few were those who passed over them. The many
ride by the modern trolley, or the still more modern motor car. Every town
of the section is in easy reach of New Haven, and makes full use of this advan-
tage. To New Haven's shore, to New Haven's and West Haven's amusement
resorts, to theaters, to concerts, athletic sports they come by thousands daily,
almost the year around. Constantly, in these twentieth century days, there is
a fulfillment of his dream of the large community that would have staggered —
and not altogether pleased, we must fear — the ambitious but straight-laced
John Davenport. But there are other features which he must reckon, if he
passes judgment on the conditions of today, in compensation.

CHAPTER III
THE DUAL DEVELOPMENT

THE COMMON ORIGIN OF TPIE TOWN AND THE COLLEGE IN DAVENPORT "S PLAN — THE
VICISSITUDES OP THE COLLEGIATE SCHOOL IN ITS FOUNDING AND EARLY DAYS, AND
THE NEW HAVEN-HARTFORD STRIFE OVER A SITE — THE PART OF ELIHU YALE AND
THE ESTABLISHMENT OF Y'ALE COLLEGE IN NEW HAVEN

Tliere have been some New Haveners so narrow of vision as to resent the
complete description of their town as the home of Yale University. They are
not the ones who know that this was destined from the beginning. We have
seen that it was a trinity which John Davenport conceived — the church, the
state and the college. His ideal community was to combine the three. He died
without realizing one of them, and the spirit of the New World was not to brook
the dependent alliance of church and state. But the college was to be a part of
the Davenport community, though not in his time. And the college was to
gi-ow, albeit with a far different superstructure, on the foundation which he laid.

In all this ambition, as imperfectly they realized it, the people of his flock
were with Pastor Davenport from the first. They dutifully attended those all-
day Sabbath services, and sat, shivering but sanctified, through their two-hour
prayers and their two-hour sermons, each a day's work for a minister, and
requiring an able bodied assistant to carry the service through. They submitted
obediently to the discipline which Governor Eaton measured oat to evil doers,
his law being John Davenpoi't's interpretation of the Holy Scriptui-es. Rare
were they who did not, through some seemingly natural weakness of the flesh,
find themselves evil doers now and then. The governor's wife was not among
the fortunate who escaped, l)ut was publicly punished for some ofi'euse of which
the details have not come down. Even in a little community of scarce 300 people
there were many who failed to measure up to the stern standard of the Puritan-
elaborated Mosaic law. A settler would be leaving the "state" without per-
mission; a storekeeper was charging more than a just profit on his goods (verily
they had food dictators in those days) ; a watchman slept on his heat; a shoe-
maker's leather was not up to standard; someone worked on the Sabbath. All
these, and a multitude of others too many to mention here, were offenses pun-
ishable in Magistrate Eaton's court, and were punished thei-e. The wonder is

20 A MODEKN HISTORY OF NEW HAVEN

that one pair of stocks sufficed to correct all the offenders worthy of their cor-
rection. There they stood, a prominent feature in the scenery of the ilarket
Place. Their sight may well have been a deterrent to the righteous who in-
advertently sinned, but the wicked, then as now, passed on and were punished.
This is a glimpse of the rigors of tlie church-state, and perhaps it hints at
the reason why that alliance did not long survive. But in the matter of
education it was different. There was need of education. True, these settlers
had been used to good schools in the Old World, but here were their children,
with nothing but the church to depend upon in their new home. Not all of
them had been so fortunate as John Davenport and Theophilus Eaton in ancient
but classic Coventry, blessed l>y its free school. Both knew the imperative
necessity of establishing, as soon as might be, a system of education in their
ideal state. Davenport had brought the Ezekiel Cheever aforementioned with
him when he came down from Boston, and he set him at work as soon as ever •
the people got into better quarters than their dugouts on the banks of the West
Creek. It was a strange education, from our viewpoint, which Cheever threshed
into the minds of the youth of the colony. He was long on Latin and strong
on temper and birch rods. He was effective, but his reign, as we have seen,
could not exist in the same domain with John Davenport.

He was succeeded by others, more subservient to the pastor. They had
to follow a somewhat definite plan, and in it we can trace the beginnings of
the compulsory school system as it exists today in New England. The old
English school system was undemocratic, and depended for its educational
equipment on private endowment, while attendance was more or less voluntary.
The plan which Davenport had in mind was conceived from the view he had of
the Dutch school system. It was public ; it was thoroughly democratic ; it was
compulsory. With "a sehoolhouse in every valley" it was to become the effi-
cient educational force which we have today.

But this was fundamental. Davenport had ambitions for higher education
for his to-be-perfect comnuinity. Here he departed almost entirely, it seems,
from the known lines, and proposed to establish a college to serve certain
purposes which he deemed highly essential. It was not to be an institution
for all. It was not to provide what we should call a liberal education. We
have come to term such schools as he had in mind "theological seminaries,"
not accepting for them the modern and broader term "schools of religion."
It was, in short. John Davenport's purpose, as a means of perpetuating in un-
diminished strength the peculiar religious sect which he represented, to es-
tablish a college for the training of young men in the doctrines of the Calvinistic
church, in order that they might become orthodox preachers of that faith in
the churches of the colonies.

With the modern Yale before our view, we may scoff at the narrowness
of that idea. We wonder not and we cai-e little that it failed. But we should
not forget that though it failed, though John Davenport left the seeming wreck
of his church-state with his college plan even more in ruins than his state, he

AND EASTERN NEW HAVEN COUNTY 21

Aad planted seed which bore the fruit that now we see. There was to be a
college, and in spite of everything, it was to be in New Haven.

We may recall that there was with the Davenport party one Edward
Hopkins, who had married Anne Yale, sister of Elihu. When Theophilus
Eaton had spied out the goodly land of Quiunipiac, but suspected that it was
under the jurisdiction of the Hartford colony, he sent Edward Hopkins from
Boston to Hartford to secure a title to the site. But Hopkins did not return,
and seems for some time to liave neglected to write. He found Hai'tford very
much to his liking, we may judge, for remaining there, he waxed wealthy. And
Eaton went it alone without any title except what he got from the Indians.
Davenport, however, supposed Hopkins to lie friendly to New Haven, and so
he proved to be. For when Davenpoi't had written to him in London, whither
he had returned with liis wealth, in 1656 or 1657, asking him to help him
financially with the collegiate project which he outlined, Hopkins's reply was
to the effect that "if I understand that a college is begun and likely to be carried
on, at New Haven, for the good of posterity, I shall give some encouragement
thereto."

But Edward Hopkins's death occurred within a year after that time, and
instead of his inclination to "give some encouragement" to the Davenport
college plan, his will, made previously, dictated the disposal of his Connecticut
estate. It consisted, in the main, of £1,324 "and a negar." This was divided,
for educational purposes, between "both grammar school and college." If the
New Haven share had been realized at once, only about £331 would have been
available for the college, obviously much too small a sum. Eventually, all that
came to New Haven was used for the establishment of the Hopkins Grammar
School, which was founded in 1660, and in existence continuously since.

Thus was the original Davenport college plan sidetracked, mainly for lack
of funds. But thus was what was in a certain sense a harvest of the Davenport
seed realized. It was ineffectual as an educational provision, for at least the
first few years. For it was inadequately endowed, and the colony's educational
tide was at a low ebb. Meanwhile, came the Reverend James Pierpont as the
first pastor's successor, and with him a new spirit into the plan to found a
v'ollege in New Haven.

Pierpont was a Harvard graduate in the class of 1681. Davenport had left
in 1668 to close his disappointed days in Boston, and the seventeen years' in-
terval between that and the coming of Pierpont was filled, first by the somewhat
ineffectual Reverend Nicholas Street, who had been Davenport's assistant,
then by several temporary preachers. Looking back on the failure of Davenport
to achieve his ambition, one may regard without especial regret the fact that
Pierpont was a man of different type. He was less forceful and obstinate :
more winning and diplomatic. He may have been a less awesome preacher, but
it is conceivable that "the common people heard him gladly" rather than

22 A MODERN HISTORY OF NEW HAVEN

through compulsion. And he caught, in large degree, the Davenport idea as
to the establishment of a college in New Haven.

It was characteristic of James Pierpont, no doubt, that he did not set about
to force the issue at once. It was nearly fifteen years after the coming of
James Pierpont that the founding of a college reached an approach to actual
realization, but even then he did not insist that it be at New Haven or nowhere.
He realized that there was to be not a little difficulty, in the divided mind of the
board of trustees, in settling the college anywhere in the New Haven region.
The New Haven state, as we recall, had some time before been merged in the
Connecticut colony, and there was a decided opinion in Hartford that the college
ought to come in that direction. As a representative of the coast trustees Pier-
pont was a leader in the successful effort to establish the college in the southern
part of the colony. Later he compromised on Saybrook. But all along, we have
excellent reason to believe, he held firmly the thought that it was in due time
to come to New Haven. He did not quite live (his death was in 1714) to see
the success of his purpose, but he lived long enough to make sure that it was
to be.

The events in the life of the Collegiate school outside of New Haven are
interesting, and have also a constant bearing on its ultimate destination for the
place of Davenport's original plan. The movers for the institution were min-
isters, for though there may have been a modification of the strictness of pur-
pose to make it a school for training in Calvinistic theology, the main thought
was still to make it a training place for ministers. The church — and that
meant the Congregational Church of the Connecticut sort — must have some
source of supply. The New Haven colony was spreading out. New churches
were being established. The call, then as now, was for men. The main de-
pendence up to this time had been Harvard. But the sort of theology Harvard
was teaching was being suspected in Connecticut. And anyway, Connecticut
wanted its own school.

There were strong men in the Connecticut churches of those days, several
of whom were powers in the New Haven district. Others of them, as the pilots
of the Collegiate school ship soon learned, and not entirely to their pleasure,
were in the Hartford district. There was the able Timothy "Woodbridge of
Hartford. Gershom Bulkeley of Wethersfield, though now well advanced in
years, was still influential. Samuel Mather of the First Church of Windsor
admitted himself "little and feeble," but he was mighty in council, neverthe-
less. And Noadiah Russell of Middletown. born in New Haven, a classmate at
Harvard of James Pierpont, seems to have been counted by the Hartford
ministers on their side but to have had natural leanings to New Haven. There
was a goodly group of ministers in Fairfield County, but the ones who chiefly
concern us are Israel Chauncy of Stratford and Joseph Webb of Fairfield,
the latter to be in the first list of trustees of the college. Stephen Buckingham
of Norwalk, a younger man, was not to figure in the ca.se until later.

New London County then had nine settled ministers, and all of them were
concerned in the college plans. In Stonington and Lyme were brothers, James

AND EASTERN NEW HAVEN COUNTY 23

and Moses Noyes, Harvard 1659. Of the others Thomas Buckingham of Say-
brook, Abraham Piersou of Killiugworth (New London County came over to
meet New Haven County in those days) and Gurdon Saltonstall of New London,
later to be the governor of the colony and to play an important part in the
bringing of Yale to New Haven, are the ones who figure here. Besides, Samuel
Andrew of Milford and Thomas Ruggles of Guilford, Samuel Street of Walling-
ford and Joseph Moss of Derby were the chief participants in the events of
those years when the college was a pilgrim and a stranger to New Haven. It
is desirable to notice them by location, for that played an important part in the
alignment for the coming struggle between the Hartford party and the New
Haven party to get the college.

Up to 1701, Hartford had been the sole capital, but in that year the legisla-
ture of the colony held its first meeting in New Haven under the plan of making
that the joint capital. This was not a change to the advantage of the Hartford
group, but they nevertheless resolved to seek fi'om that legislature a charter
for the college, hoping at the same time to secure an order for its location
where they wanted it. But the members of the New Haven group were even
better politicians. They did not purpose to trust the matter to the legislature.
It was at James Pierpont's house in New Haven that they met and formed a plan
to make their charter in advance of the sitting of the legislature, and submit
it to that body for ratification, not for formation. They took counsel with
certain eminent lawyers at Boston for the construction of a charter. But when
they got the document which the distinguished Secretary Addington and Cap-
tain Sewall had prepared for them, they read it and then, in the characteristic
Connecticut manner, did as they pleased. It was too Harvard-like to suit them.

"An Act for Liberty to Erect a Collegiate School" was the title of the bill
which they presented to the legislature upon its assembling at New Haven on
October 16. 1701. It was the document which clinched the action of a some-
what imperfectly authenticated meeting held earlier at the house of James
Pierpont's classmate and associate in this enterprise, the Reverend Samuel
Russel of Branford. The meeting was about the first of October, and the
action consisted, we may assume, in the formal giving of some books for the
forming of a college. There is much haziness and some disagreement as to this
foundation, but in general we may as well allow Branford 's claim to have been
the place of the actual founding of the college. It was a foundation by the
New Haven party and in the interest of New Haven.

The matter succeeded with the legislature, the Hartford group not seeing
fit to make any decided opposition. The act made no reference to a site, and
the opponents of New Haven would seem justified in deciding that it was still
anybody's college, as indeed it proved to be. The trustees, numbering ten,
who were to attempt to decide that matter, were Noyes of Stonington, Chauncy
of Stratford, Buckingham of Saybrook, Pierson of Killingworth, Mather of
Windsor, Andrew of Milford, Woodbridge of Hartford, Pierpont of New
Haven, Russell of Middletown, and Webb of Fairfield. It may be seen from
the list that the majority evidently was against Hartford, but there was nothing

24 A MODERN HISTORY OF NEW HAVEN

to do about it. It ought to be said in passing that James Pierpout, if he played
any politics in the making of the list, had at the start omitted his friend,
Russel of Branford, and had added three names of liis opponents, Woodbridge
of Hai-tford, Mather of Windsor and Russell of Middletown, to the originally
planned list.

Little was said then, and less is remembered in these days, about a strange
gift of Major John Fitch of Plainfield, a member of the upper house in that
historic legislature, announced the same day the charter was approved. It
consisted, we are told, of 637 acres of land in the far northeastern town of
Killingly, together with a promise of glass and nails to build a college house.
The college house was not built until some years afterward, at the end of a
strife over site whose outcome may not have been to the liking of Major Fitch,
so it would be interesting to know whether he made good his promise about the
glass and nails. As the aforesaid Killingly was the site of Timothy Wood-
bridge's farm, we may suspect that the gift was made in hope in behalf of
the Hartfoi'd faction. It is worthy of emphasis as the first substantial offering
to the property of the Collegiate school.

The trustees lost no time in proceeding on the authority of the charter.
Saybrook was chosen as a suitable place for their first meeting. The settlement
there was an important one in those days, though its promoters' hopes of com-
mercial gi-eatuess for it were deferred in fulfillment. It was at the mouth of
that river which was a convenient highway to Middletown and Hartford and
Windsor. It was midway of the coast between Stamford and Stonington. And
these same considerations highly recommended it, in the belief of its residents,
as a site for the college. At that first meeting, held on November 11, 1701, at
the parsonage of Thomas Buckingham, the only representative of the Hartford
faction was Noadiah Russell of Middletown. Two questions, having more con-
nection with each other than may at first appear, were of first consideration.
One was the choice of a rector, the other was the place of the college. The
naming of the man and the designation of the place of his labors were not simple
matters of arbitrary choice. The college had no buildings, and no immediate
prospect of getting any. The rector must of necessity be a minister, and most
of the ministers worth while were settled over parishes to whose welfare they
seemed indispensable. However, the trustees attacked their task bravely. But
the discussion developed difficulties that protracted it for three days. There
seems to have been a determined effort on the part of the group from New
Haven and beyond to take the college there in the first place, but the Reverend
Noadiah Russell, sole representative at the meeting of the Hartford trustees,
fought fire with fire. That is, be boldly advocated the taking of the Collegiate
school to Hartford. Between these two positions a compromise seemed the only
possibility, and doubtless Saybrook was that compromise. Trustee Buckingham,
who with James Noyes of Stonington favored this, was of course not displeased at
the prospect of such a compromise.

So hopeless became the tangle that they deferred this question for a time,
and attacked that of the rector. The introduction of the name of Abraham

AND EASTERN NEW HAVEN COUNTY 25

Pierson was not a surprise, and to agree ou him did not take long. He did not
decline the offer, and it was at once taken for granted that he would accept.
It was also taken for granted that he would consent to remove to Saybrook, and
that town was agreed upon, still in the spirit of compromise, as the place.

Nevertheless, Killingworth, which is now Clinton, was to be the real first
place of Yale, or as the trustees could only know it, the Collegiate school.
Abraham Pierson may have been willing enough to go to Say brook, but his
people were not. That is, they flatly refused to release him from his pastorate.
Yes, they would consent that he teach the young men in his great parsonage
on the banks of the Indian River, but in Killingwoi-th he must remain.

This seems to have been without any formal vote of permission by the trus-
tees, though they left the matter in a somewhat uncertain condition. They seem
to have had an inkling that the people of Killingworth would not consent to part
with Mr. Pierson, and to have left the matter of his residence somewhat
indefinite. In the following j\Iarch (1702) Rector Pierson began his arduous
labors with one student, Jacob Ileminway of East Haven. So the first member
of the college w^as fwrnished by the New Haven community. He was "all of
the college" for the first half-year. They had Commencement for him, too,
though it and those that followed it were, by desire of the trustees, very
unpretentious affairs. Three young men entered Rector Pierson 's cla.sses
for the next year. This began immediately after Commencement, for the idea
of long vacations had not yet arrived. Getting an education was too serious
a business to lie remitted for any part of the year.

So the years went on in the fine old parsonage at Killingworth, where good
work was done \inder the able teaching of the college's first president, iintil
this order of things was suddenly terminated by the death of Rector Pierson in
March, 1707. In that five years, eighteen young men were graduated with
their first degrees at the Collegiate school.

It seemed now that the old struggle over a site might begin over again.
But Saybrook was the official place of the school, and the trustees of Saybrook
and farther east resolved that it should become so in fact. Perhaps with a
purpose to play for time, the New Haven and western trustees compromised
again by the election of Reverend Samuel Andrew of Milford rector pro tern.
He took the senior class for instruction to his parsonage, while the other classes
were taken to the parsonage at Saybrook by Tutor Phineas Fiske, of the class
of 1704. This was a bad arrangement, but for some reason or other it was con-
tinued until, in 1714, the long fight over a site was concluded by the permanent
choice of New Haven, and the Reverend Timothy Cutler was chosen as the
third rector.

The later years of the college's wanderings were very disappointing ones
for its friends. For a considerable part of the time classes were held in three
places, Wethersfield competing, as it were, with Saybrook and Milford. In the
first place Tutor Elisha Williams held his ground, seemingly in behalf of the
Hartford County trustees, almost in defiance of the authority of the main
body. The work at Saybrook was unsatisfactory. Acting Rector Andrew at

26 A MODERiN HISTORY OF NEW HAVEN

Milford did not euter with especial spirit into the college work, and the number
of students dwindled. Especially was the lack of funds disheartening. There
were no suitable buildings at any of the places, the teaching was poor and the
whole situation was of faint promise.

Ill

The name Yale, it appears, was the magic token that was to win the college
for New Haveu. The chain that bound the institution to the town of John
Davenport was never broken from tlie time he resolved to have a college "for
the better trayniug upp of youth in this town, that through God's blessing,
they may be fitted for publique service hereafter, either in church or common-
weale. " But there were foes, as we have seen, to the New Haven plan, and
it seemed for a time that there were few friends.

Three men had much to do with changing this condition. The first was the
Reverend James Pierpont, whose unremitting but unostentatious purpose to
win for New Haven has been noticed. The second was the Reverend Gurdon
Saltonstall of New London, who was later to leave the pulpit for the chief
magisti-acy of the colony. After lie was made governor, he took up his resi-
dence overlooking the lake which now bears his name. His purpose to bring
the college to New Haven seems to have been a matter of common sense rather
than partisanship. He realized that New Haven was the place for it. In the
end, lie was glad enough to use his influence for the ending of an interminable
and unseemly squabble. The tliird friend was Jeremiah Dummer, the Mas-
sachusetts colony's agent in London, later Connecticut's agent there, whose
connection with the affair was to end in the enlistment of the aid of Elihu Yale.

Dummer 's help was besought in 1711 by James Pierpont, who wrote asking
liim what could be done in London to secure funds or books for the struggling
institution. It was fortunate that Dummer was a very energetic, resourceful
and persistent business man, with some influential connections. He called on
several important men, and as the result, secured that valuable library of
some 700 volumes which was sent to Saybrook in 1714. It was that same
library which, later taken from Saybrook much against the will of those who
took witli very poor grace the removal of the college from that town, was
seriously impaired in the struggle.

The somewhat brief connection of Elihu Yale with the enterprise makes a
story not so well known, but of the keenest interest to New Haven. Jeremiah
Dummer practically did it all, though it will always be in interesting specula-
tion as to the influence which the Reverend Cotton Mather of Boston had in it.
The idea was to have Governor Yale, who was extremely wealthy for those days,
make a very substantial gift to the college, and in return have it named in
his honor. Tt may have first occurred to the energetic Dummer — it would
have been strange if it had not — but oddly enough, it seems to have been
Cotton Mather who fir.st put it unmistakably to Governor Yale. In a fit of
grudge against Harvard, the great Baston divine wrote to Governor Yale in

AND EASTEEN XEW HAVEN COUNTY 27

1717, eloquently presenting the need of funds for the college which was still
trying to hold its own at New Haven, and adding: "Sir, though you have
your felicities in your family, which I pray God may continue and multiply,
yet certainly, if what is forming at New Haven might wear the name of Yale
College, it would be better than a name of sons and daughters. ' '

Dummer followed this up energetically. Governor Yale was not, it appears,
a very spiritually minded person. He had some sentiment for the Xew Haven
community, for, as we have seen, his father had been with the Davenport party,
and had made a fortune in the town. Later he went to Boston, where Elihu
Yale was born. Early in life Elihu Yale went to London, was educated in good
schools, and had gone to Madras with an East India Company adventure. Made
governor of the trading post of Fort St. George, he had at the age of fifty
returned to London with an almost fabulous fortune, gained, it is suggested, by
means that would not have been approved even in the days when we counte-
nanced "malefactors of great wealth." In London he was a typical man of the
world, but at the time when Jeremiah Dummer approached him, almost seventy
and looking forward with a sometimes thoughtful air. He was childless, which
one needs to know to understand the Mather reference.

This was the Elihu Yale with whom it was sought to make a trade of the
honor of naming a college for a goodly bequest to it. Many a man of less com-
parative wealth than he, in our days, has given much more generously for the
honor of naming a college building. It is desirable to notice just what Yale
did. He gave thirty or forty volumes of books in 1714. After Dummer had
worked with him some four months after the receipt of the ilather letter, he
donated to the college a consignment of goods to Boston whose value he esti-
mated at £800, but which, when sold, netted £562, 12s. He also promised
to give £200 a year to the college, and to make a settled annual provision for
it after his death. He died in 1721, having given nothing further, and no pro-
vision for the college was found in his will.

But the .$2,833, or thereabout, which the college received from Governor
Yale was the largest private donation it received in rather more than its first
century. Its worth was multiplied because it came at the psychological moment.
It came at just the time when it was needed to complete the college house
which was building, and it clinched in New Haven the institution which Hart-
ford was still trying to wrest from the setttlement at the mouth of the Quin-
nipiac. New Haven and the university are well content with the name Yale,
and concede that the old governor earned the honor he has received.

So the dream of John Davenport, long deferred, was at length come true
so far as the college was concerned. His mantle had been well worn by his
successor Pierpont, and his ambition also was realized. The Hartford faction,
W'hich had sought through the trustees, through the legislature, through the
maintenance of a part of the college, unauthorized, at Wethersfield, and through
a final attempt to take the institution to Middletown, to defeat that ambition, had
lost at every point. Governor Saltonstall had been a valuable ally to the New

28 A MODERN HISTORY OF NEW HAVEN

Haven trustees, and even the attempt to punish him politically for his supposed
partiality ingloriously failed.

The City of New Haven today is a strange contrast with that rural com-
munity of less than 2,500 people which in 1720 rejoiced at the certainty that
Yale had come to stay. It looks back over two centuries, however, with the
realization that the history of the town and the history of the college have
been as truly interwoven ever since as they were in those days of foundation
struggles. But there have been times in the centuries when not all of the people
have taken gracefully to the relationship. Those differences form a not uninter-
esting part of the history of New Haven, and have a distinct bearing on
modern New Haven. It will be worth while to trace them as a contrast with
the better order which prevails today.

CHAPTER IV
THE YEARS OF DISCORD

THE CRUDE STRIFE OF TOWN AND GOWN — ITS SEQUEL IN THE MISUNDERSTANDING
AND SEPARATION OF THE COMMUNITY AND THE UNIVERSITY

[t has often been remarked that New Haven, for a city of its size, remark-
ably retained the oliaracteristies of the New England village. This is not neces-
sarily, when thoughtfully expressed, meant in disparagement. It signifies that
there is in the community a sort of intimacy which brings all its interests and
constituents very close together. This was especially true of the last century,
and it was in considerable degi-ee the cause of the rivalry at one time con-
spicuously existent between New Haven and its college. Or, to use the common
and threadbare phrase, it accounts in a measure for the class distinctions and
strife of Town and Gown.

It was impossible that the residents of New Haven should look on the mem-
bers of the college as the common run of men. New Haven would never have
earned the college if it had been able to escape a certain awe of the educated
man, or a decided respect for the process. And so certain of the residents of
the town cultivated and made much of the "scholars" at Yale. Coming from
near or far, they were always able to command a place immediately on their
arrival in the society of New Haven, a place which was, in most instances,
denied to the young man who came in from the country to work in a bank
or store. The result was jealousy, both among the non-college .young men who
grew up in the city, and those who came in from the surrounding towns. They
made common cause, and it is not surprising that they decided the "student"
to be their enemy.

For this condition of things one cannot wholly excuse the people who caused
it. that is, the people who patronized the college men. But as years went on,
there came into the situation another element which made it even worse. Even
in the earliest days, perhaps more generally than in these days, the young man
who could afford a college education was a favored mortal, set above his
fellows. Often he had much money to spend. Certain of the townspeople
noticed this, and the New England inclination to "make hay while the sun
shines" came to the surface. It reached the point, at one time and with some

30 A MODERN HISTORY OF NEW HAVEN

persons, of making the most possible out of the students. They were over-
charged, sometimes, it is suspected. At least there was a tendency to encourage
them in the spending of much money. They came to realize this very clearly,
and naturally resented it.

We have, in brief, a condition in which the young "outlanders," as it
seemed to the young men of the town, came under favor of special privilege,
entered the best .society and monopolized all the girls, and generally carried
themselves with an air of haughty superiority. On the other hand, the students
deemed themselves the victims of greedy tradesmen and landladies and res-
taurateurs, all of whom they despised. They set themselves, in .some cases,
somewhat above the authority of the powers of law and order, and perpetrated
the sort of pranks that were much the fashion in all colleges at some period in
their growth. Yale by now has for the most part outgrown these things, which
accounts for the better conditions.

The situation thus outlined is nothing new. It has been developed in almost
every juxtaposition of a college and a town from the very beginning. The
youth who feels his growing learning is wont to be a supercilious, overbearing
creature. If he is not that, he is likely to be so full of intensified animal spirits
as to be a difficult ciuantity for a community to contain. New Haven simply
had troubles in common with every college town, and it probably handled them
no better than others have done.

But they form an interesting and not uninstructive story, if studied for
their reason. It needs to be remembered that there was in the last century,
that is up to the last third of it, no organized form of athletics at the college.
Some crude games there were, but they were played haphazard. The Nineteenth
century was well advanced before football was played in any but the crudest
way, and baseball as we know it came even later. Yet here was a considerable
and growing body of young men, with all the surplus energy that young men
have in these days. They were somewhat freed from the restraints of home,
and the rigor of the early college discipline had been lightened. Something had
to happen. It seems that something did happen.

The story of the "Bully Club" is preserved only among rare Yale traditions,
and New Haven people have forgotten it. It seems to be included mostly be-
tween the years 1807 and 1843. One can only guess at the origin of the custom
of choosing a class giant — there were giants in those days — as class Bully,
and investing him with the great oaken club as his badge of office. It would
have been a harmless custom enough, except that no pent up TJtica, that is to
say, Campus, could contain such prowess. The Bully and his followers natur-
ally went out to do slaughter among their natural enemies, the Philistines.
These were the "muckers" of the early days. And there is a more or less
misty tradition that these encoimters were not always matters of mere jest.

Perhaps it was when Isaac T. Preston of 1812 wa.s Bully, perhaps it was in
the reign of the no less renowned Asa Thurston of the class of 1816, that
there was one of these fights in a notorious tavern on the water front in Fair
Haven, which section of the town the students knew, perhaps from the company

OAMaiiLLT ilALL, XAl.E LMVEKMTV. NEW HAVEN

AND EASTERN NEW HAVEN COUNTY 31

they sought there, as "Dragon." The Bully and his band on the one side,
and an assorted bunch of oystermen, sailors and tough townsmen on the other,
met there and fought to a draw, with some breaking of heads. There seems
to have been a sequel soon after, when students bathing at Long Wharf were
attacked by longshoremen, mariners and wharf rats, and badly worsted.

There were a good many such fights in the early part of the century, and
the legend of Bullyism is rich with glorious deeds. There is, for instance, that
thrilling tale of how "three hundred students and their teachers held back
a mob of three thousand (sic) townies. " But the faculty eventually came
to the opinion that even such glory cost too high, and in 1840 abolished the
Bull.y Club. It lived in defiance of the edict for three years longer, and then
gradually disappeared.

5'Iore definite, and '■also more serious, is the story of some mob outbreaks
which owed no origin to the Bully Club. The "Medical College riot" of 1824
was the first of these, and indicates the general spirit of disregard of the feel-
ings of the townspeople on the part of the students, and of smouldering suspicion
and dislike on the part of the townspeople. A gi'ave w'as found broken in
West Haven Cemetery, and the recently buried body of a young woman was
missing. Suspicion was at onee directed to the students of the Medical College,
which was then located at the corner of Grove and Prospect streets. An excited
crowd gathered on the Green, and resolved on stern action. One of the town
cannon was secured, and the mob proceeded to the Medical College building.
What might have happened if the militia had not received warning at the same
time it is difficult to guess. The soldiers arrived before or soon after the
crowd, and restrained the mob until a committee could be appointed to proceed
with some order. A search of the building revealed the body beneath the pave-
ment in the cellar. Then the excitement flared to its gi-eatest height, and it
took all the force of the soldiers to prevent serious damage to the building.
Eventually the mob went back to the Grftn, where a greater procession was
formed and returned the body in state to its resting place in West Haven. It
was many years before the effect of that incident passed off. One person was
imprisoned, and' a stringent law was passed against such outrages.

Then there was the familiar strife between the students and the members
of the volunteer fire companies, most common about the middle of the century.
They may have had their origin, at least they had their aggravation, from en-
counters on the Green. This was all the athletic field the students had ; it was
also the scene of the maneuvers of the fire companies. The latter were fond
of contests to see which company could throw a stream of water highest, and
Center Church spire was a favorite target. If the students chanced to be hav-
ing on the Green at the same time one of their crude games of football, it is
easy enough to imagine how an encounter started. The hose was dragged
across the football field ; perhaps its holders were not careful to keep the streams
of water from playing on the players. In retaliation, ready knives would now
and then cut a line of hose. There were toughs among the firemen ; there were
hot-bloods, some of them southerners, among the students. And this was not

32 A MODERN HISTORY OF NEW HAVEN

so long- before the Civil War. Some of the students and perhaps some of the
firemen carried pistols for just such an emergency, and one account has it that
in the worst of these fights, in which tiie Bully Clnb may have figured, a fireman,
William Miles, was shot dead.

There is some definite account of what may have been the culmination of
these encounters, on October 30, 1841. It was the day of the annual review
of the New Haven fire department. This was one of the times when the hose
playing and the football playing clashed, and the students were worsted. Later
in the day they retaliated by interrupting the firemen's banquet, which was in
the basement of the old State House. They were driven off after a fight. Next
night some students broke into an engine house near the college and injured the
apparatus, for which prank the college authorities had to settle roundly.

On March 17, 1854, occurred a battle, fully as serious in its way, in which
the firemen were not, as organization, concerned. That began, as many lesser
troubles did in later years, with a row at a theater. After "breaking np the
show," a crowd of townies followed the students up the street to the campus.
The latter barricaded themselves in South College, where they were besieged
all night liy an angry and increasing mob. Two cannon were brought from
somewhere, and those operating them were earnestly besought to "blow up the
college." But for the interference of the police, who must by this time have
begun to feel that the matter was going too far, there might have been some
explosion of gunpowder, and doubtless somebody would have been injured
thereby. As it was, there were heads and bones injured by stones and brick-
bats, and the leader of the town mob, one Patrick O'Neil, barkeeper and general
trouble maker, was stabbed through the heart by one of the students, .said to
have lieen a senior from Mississippi.

These are illustrations of the more serious of the encounters, mostly in the
first half of the last century. The intensity of the rivalry waned somewhat as
the century drew near its close, though the feeling was always there. The
townsmen seem to have lost interest, somewhat, in keeping it up. They began
to sense the fact that there were students and students. Some of them even
realized that the part of the college which went abroad from the campus making
trouble and giving Yale a bad name was only a small rainoritj' of the whole.
This minority kept busy, however, and passed on its traditions. It frequented
the town dance resorts — New Haven had some choice ones in those days — and
was usually able to find something there with which to lubricate trouble. It
tried, on occasion, usually after an athletic victory, to run the theaters. This
does not refer to the "Football Nights" at the Hyperion, which wei'e peculiar
institutions, thoroughly enjoyed by those who took them in the proper spirit.

It was long the custom, when Yale beat Harvard or Princeton in the annual
football game, to celebrate the event by special services not down on the program
of the Hyperion performance of that particular Saturday night. After a few
experiences, the managers learned that it was desirable to book for that night
some light and gladsome show, such as a musical comedy. What it lacked in
entertainment the joyous students would supply. They usually bought the

!ii.M>i:ii

: HALL, YALE UNIVERSITY, NEW HA\]':N

YALE UNIVERSITY LIBRARY. NEW HAVEN

34 A MODERN HISTORY OF NEW HAVEN

eneourageinent to the educational' institution as it was to the church. It was
taken for granted, then, that there nuist be no taxation of college property. In
the beginning there was no college property to tax, and it did not occur to the
colonists that there ever would be. Little did they dream of the time when
Yale University would own property approximating $15,000,000 in value, or
have real estate holdings in area nearly equal to half of the original nine city
squares.

It was in the late eighties that Yale began to foresee the need of expansion.
Her fiscal directors, knowing well the expense of buying property in haste
and when the need for it was obvious, inaugurated the policy of quietly and
unobservedly getting bits of real estate as favorable opportunity offered. This
went gradually on for a number of years, until all at once the tax levying
authorities of the city, in the midst of their struggle to meet increasing munici-
pal expenses without raising the tax rate, awoke to the fact that Yale was a
large holder of real estate on which it paid no taxes. The ancient antagonism
easily magnified this, and soon there began to be talk that Yale had been long
enough immune from taxes. Times had changed, they argued. The struggling
little college had grown to a wealthy, money-making corporation. It had
erected great and costly ))uildings. Its number of students had grown to over
2,500, most of them paying high tuition. It was buying property for specula-
tion, they contended, and receiving large rentals for it. It was constantly in
receipt of enormous gifts, and all the while seeking more.

These were the arguments, mostly of the undiscerning, who knew little of
the history of the past or of the real facts of the present. They could be
answered, but they would not listen to the answer. The faction grew of New
Haven taxpayers who insisted that Yale ought to be taxed, and more than once
the matter was taken to the Legislature. That body was always governed, how-
ever, by those who saw the case in its proper perspective, and there never was
any particular danger of a mea.sure to tax Yale going through. But there re-
mained a party of New Haveners who insisted that the thing ought to be done,
and there was a steady friction that had a tendency to gi'ow.

There is something to be said about that matter, too, which is not wholly
in condemnation of the faction bound to tax the college, superficial as its view-
point was. The old dividing line between the college and the town was gradu-
ally being erased by the progress of events and the change in the customs and
character of the student body, but the college authorities themselves were, to
put it mildly, missing glorious opportunities to help on the good work. There
was a certain aloofness, if not an assumption of superiority, on the part of the
conservative college circle, which did not help matters. It was beneath their
dignity to reason out this matter of taxation with the people. If they thought
there was danger of trouble, they were willing to argue before the proper body,
but that was all.

These modern mentors of the community through the college had some-
what materially departed from the conception of John Davenport, stern old
autocrat though he was, of a college in whose benefits every member of the

AND EASTERN NEW HAVEN COUNTY 35

community should share. So we find, in the closing years of the Nineteenth
century, the university with a great equipment of instructors and buildings
and historical, scientific and art collections, whose tremendous potentiality for
benefit to others beyond the student liody was little shared by the public. There
was a door of opportunity for those disposed to push, but it did not exactly
stand open.

There never was any justification for the argument that such an institution
as Yale ought to pay a tax on its non-productive property (it always has paid
taxes on its income-paying property). But it was eminently desirable that
those responsible for Yale appreciate the fact that in holding some five million
dollars' worth of property, as they did by the end of the century, free of taxa-
tion, they incurred a large responsibility, and that the least they could do was
to show some evidence of appreciatiou. Fortunately, there came a change early
in Yale's third century of existence, as we shall see in the next chapter.

CHAPTER V
THE BEGINNING OF HARMONY

THE NEW ERA IN THE NEW CENTURY AND THE EMERGENCE OP YALE FROM ITS CLOISTER

The first year of the new century saw the beginning of a new era for Yale, and
as well — though this was not recognized in the distinguished celebration — a new
era in the consciousness of relation between Yale and New Haven. A notable
feature of the Bicentennial exercises which marked October 20 to 23 of 1901
at New Haven w-as the dedication of the group of Bicentennial buildings, and
of these the most conspicuous was Yale's great music auditorium, Woolsey
Hall.

This new auditorium, seating near to 3,000 people, was to be for many years
the largest assembly hall in New Haven. In connection with it, let it be re-
membered, is Yale's great dining hall, also the largest building of its sort in
the city, and destined to play an important part in the change. Naturally,
the possibilities of these buildings were little realized at the first. It was
expected that they would largely be used by the student body, and for great
university and graduate gatherings. But there had been in existence for a
number of years previous to this time an excellent organization known as the
New Haven Symphony Orchestra. It has labored a.ssiduously for the perfection
of itself in the production of good music, but it had received little encourage-
ment in its labors. That is, there was no opportunity for the adequate produc-
tion of its music before an audience of suitable size.

Soon after the completion of Woolsey Hall began the annual series of eon-
certs by this orchestra, and to this annual offering of the world's best music,
competently presented, to some thousands of the people of New Haven and
vicinity may be given the- credit for first breaking the ice between the university
and the community. It was the beginning, moreover, of New Haven's awaken-
ing to the fact that it had, through Yale, that wherewith to make it a national
music center.

There was also to be installed in Woolsey Hall the great Newberry organ,
when it was erected, one of the largest instruments of its sort in the country,
and in 1916 and 1917 to be enlarged to international magnitude. This also
was a great attraction to the people, and they made the most of it. Later, as
we may see, they had increasing opportunity.

"With this impetus, the change was bound to come. The inherited animosities

VVOOLSEY HALL, YALK I "XI \KKSITV. XKW HA\'KN

OSBOKN HALL, YALE IXIVERSITY, NEW HAVEN

AND EASTERN NEW HAVEN COUNTY 37

of a century were not overcome iu a minute, to be sure. But the expansion of
the university would have had its inevitable result, perhaps, without the
opening of Woolsey Hall. This is mentioned here chiefly as the milestone of
the progress. The college that in the first two-thirds of the Nineteenth century
found the "Brick Row" suificient unto its needs had been as well sufficient
unto itself. Living its own cloistered life, it acquired a feeling of superiority,
and that bred a reciprocal feeling of hate, which worked out a.s we have seen. Now
the college suddenly realized that it was a university. At the same time it dis-
covered that it had long since burst its shell. It was overflowing into New
Haven, in spite of itself.

This was true of the undergraduates of the college; it wa.s still more
true of those in the other departments of the university. The scientific school
had not then commenced to create a campus, and the members of the law, the
medical and the art departments were compelled to live among the people of
the town. About this time the members of the teaching force, who formerly
had lived in a restricted area inhabited mostly by Yale faculty members, found
that there were other parts of the spreading city possessing greater attractions.
So they began to live "among people," as it were, and to take an interest in the
things of real life.

The city itself was becoming larger, better balanced, less provincial. It
was beginning to realize that it had something besides Yale to boast as its
possession, but at the same time to ti-uly realize the value of Yale. There was
a better understanding on both sides. Unconsciously, perhaps, but surely, the
people of twentieth century New Haven were beginning to know that they were
destined to be one with Yale, and that Yale was destined, and had been for
considerably more than two centuries, to be one with them. The ways in which
this harmony has grown toward completeness, in the first two decades of this
century, are now to be told somewhat more in detail.

CHAPTER VI
THE GOWN LAID ASIDE

THE YALE BICENTENNIAL CELEBRATION OF 1901— THE PARTICIPATION OF YALE
OFFICERS AND TEACHERS, GRADUATES AND UNDERGRADUATES IN THE RELIGIOUS,
SOCIAL AND CIVIC LIFE OF NEW HAVEN.

It has been said that the Hieeiiteunial of tlie fouudiiig of Yale marked sub-
stantially the beginning of the breaking down of the walls between Gown and
Town. It seems as well to have brought to the leaders of Yale, because of its
emphasis of the fact that New Haven and the college were destined for each
other from the first, because of its new revelation of the unity involved in
John Davenport's plan for a church-state-college, a consciousness of their one-
ness with the community. For that reason the Bicentennial itself, as a part of
the modern history of New Haven, has a place here.

Whether we regard Yale as having been founded at Branford or Killing-
worth or Saybrook, there is no getting away from the fact that the date is
1701. For October of 1901, then, Yale prepared an impressive celebration.
It was to be the great feast of Yale history, and to it many were bidden. They
came in thousands. Considering how nnich smaller was the number of Yale
graduates even as recently as that — the number increases now at the rate of
almost a thousand a year, taking no account of deaths — it meant much that nine
thousand came from near and far to attend the exercises of some part of the
four days, October 20 to 23, inclusive. Over nine thousand, graduates and
undergraduates, took some part in those exercises. From other collegiate in-
stitutions and learned societies, from America. Europe and Asia, came three
hundred and thirty-one representatives. Yale granted, to members of this
group and others, more than sixty honorary degrees. It was by far the most
distinguished group ever to receive Yale degrees, including John Hay, Horace
Howard Furiu'ss, John La Farge, Archbishop Ireland, Charles Eliot Norton,
Thonms Bailey Aldrich, Samuel L. Clemens, William Dean Howells. Marr|uis
Ito, Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson.

Sunday. October 20, saw a nota])le group of church recognitions of the
occasion. In Battell Chapel the Rev. Joseph H. Twiehell of Hartford, dis-
tinguished, loyal and favorite son of Yale, and a member of the corporation,

AND EASTERN NEW HAVEN COUNTY 39

preached a historical sermon, and there were special services in Center, Trinity
and United churches in honor of the anniversary. At 3 in the afternoon there
were services, and later an organ recital, iu Battell Chapel.

There were many special services at various points on Monday the 21&t,
but the central event of that day to most Yale visitors was the torchlight
procession, in which five thousand Yale men participated, from the campus
through the streets of New Haven. All were in costumes representing the
historic ages of the university, and carried torches and colored fire. The
classes participating ranged all the way from 1905, then freshmen, hack to the
veterans of 1844. The campus itself was alight with orange lanterns, and all
about it great bowls filled with burning rosin lighted up the night.

Tuesday night the undergraduates assumed command, and presented for
the delectation of the gi-aduates, on a stage in a specially built amphitheater,
scenes from the history of Yale. Open air performances of this sort were much
less common than they have been since ; in fact, the distinction of having been
the first to so present historical scenes is claimed for Yale on this occasion.
" 'Neath the Elms" in veiy truth they gathered in the bright October night, and
sang the good old songs of their times the while they waited for the preparations
lietween the scenes. The finale of the occasion, when the 9,000 stood and sang
the Doxology while the rockets and bombs burst overhead, caused one witty ob-
server to remark that it was a typical Yale coml)iuation of "praising God and
raising hell."

Wednesday was the last, the great day of the feast, when such as were
elected, either by being first at the doors or by some other means, attended
the formal commemoration exercises. Woolsey Hall was not completed, and
had it been, it could not have accommodated more than a third of those who
participated in the other exercises. It was necessary to fall back on the
Hyperion Theater, dear to many Yale men, whose capacity was much smaller.
Thither at 10 o'clock went from the campus a distinguished academic proces-
sion. In it were a President of the United States and a President to be, a
secretary of state, a ju.stice of the Supreme Court, a premier of Japan, the
presidents of nearly all the important American colleges, and eminent scholars,
scientists, preachers, writers and legislators from all parts of the world. These
were on the stage when the others reached the theater. Such of the gathering
as could entered at the doors and found seats. Others, a fortunate few who
knew the stage door, witnessed the sight and heard the exercises from the wings.
It was on that occasion that Theodore Roosevelt said he had never yet worked
at a great task in wliich he did not find himself "shoulder to shoulder with
some son of Yale." This was in response to President Iladley's happ.y charac-
terization of him as "a Harvard man by nature, but in his democratic spirit,
his breadtli of national feeling, and his earnest pursuit of what is true and right,
he possesses those qualities which represent the distinctive ideal of Yale, and
make us more than ever proud to enroll him among our alumni."

Til the light of events since. President Hadley's utterance to Professor
Woodrow Wilson, as he was about to make him Doctor of Laws, has a lively

40 A MODERN HISTORY OF NEW HAVEN

interest. "On you," he said, "who like Blaekstoue have made the studies of
the jurist the pleasures of the gentleman, and have clothed political investiga-
tions in the form of true literature, we confer the degree of Doctor of Laws."
. It was in the course of these Bicentennial exercises that many of Yale 's dis-
tinguished graduates presented addresses and literary and musical contribu-
tions to make the occasion one memorable in literature and art as well as in
history. Donald G. Mitchell's classic dedication of Woodbridge Hall, to be
the university's executive building among the Bicentennial group, was one of
them. This veteran graduate of Yale (1841), "Ik Marvel" to two generations
of the lovers of letters and nature, to be beloved of other generations to come,
was near the close of his earthly career, but his contribution lacked neither
force uor merit. Then there were Edmund Clarence Stedman's poem, "Mater
Corona," read by himself. Professor Goodell's Greek ode, the singing of
Professor Parker's "Hora Novissima," and a concert by the Boston Symphony
Orchestra.

Professor Canby, in his excellent article in the Book of the Pageant, sees
the moral effect of all this as a great service to Yale, and he is right. But as he
puts it, the manner of that great service proved the awakening of the men of
Yale to a sense of their actual relation to New Haven. The form of it, in his
words, has a definite bearing on the entrance of these men of Yale, in the period
immediately following the Bicentennial observance, into the life of the commu-
nity. "The great service," as he puts it, "was not the mere assemblage of
national leaders in New Haven, nor a reunion of college classes on an unpre-
cedented scale, nor the dignified Bicentennial group of buildings then dedicated
as a la.sting monument, nor even the splendid impulse toward development along
true university lines thus given to Yale and renewed continuously since. It was
rather the realization of the historic past of Yale and her associated dignities,
the opportunities and the responsibilities thereof, which then came first with
emphasis to the college generations in whose hands the future of the Uni-
versity was to rest. Beneath the excitement of the Bicentennial week, and beyond
its pomp and ceremony, was the consciousness of an institution that was more
than stone and mortar, more than endowment, more even than men ; a trust of
inestimable dignity, a heritage of ideals, and a name commanding veneration
as well as love. Much of what Yale seemed to demand of that generation has
been realized; much more remains to be achieved. But the sense of historic
continuity once aroused is powerful upon the future. It tempers pride by
responsibility ; it makes loyalty self-confident, yet modest because aware of the
high examples of the past. Yale has been less provincial, less tamely conserva-
tive, more earnest and more mindful that lasting tenure comes from enduring
service to the state, since the awakening of the Bicentennial. ' '

The fact that these thoiightful words were written fifteen years after that
event, and by a man who has evidenced a true consciousness of his place in the
greater eommunitj% makes them the more significant.

ST. ANTIid.W HALL, \.\\.K rXIX' KKSIT V. NKW HA\EN

42 A MODERN HISTORY OF NEW HAVEN

The participation of Yale leaders in New Haveu life took a more practical
turn, as men reckon practicality. We find Y^ale professors serving as citizens
of New Haven on the municipal boards, with every willingness to aid in the
direction of efficient and clean government. Such cases as that of Prof. Edward
B. Reed on the Civil Service Board and of Prof. Herbert E. Gregory on the
Board of Education are instances of the readiness of Yale to serve in this field ;
instances, as well, of the wisdom in selection of some of the mayors. The experi-
ments, if such they might be called, did not always result in the highest suc-
cess. In every case of failure, it may be said with confidence, this was due
to the unwillingness of the town members of the boards to meet the ideals of
the Yale men. There was something more in the way than the remnants of the
antagonism. Generally this was "practical polities," a game the Yale men
were slow in learning to play.

Mention of Yale leaders in New Haven life would be injustice if it failed to
include the service of Prof. William B. Bailey in social work through the Organ-
ized Charities. Coming into that work to fill a temporary vacancy, late in the
first decade of 1900, he applied to this force for the betterment of New Haven the
mind of a trained social scientist, the genius of an unusually able organizer. He
brought it up to its name. He co-ordinated, standardized, made systematic and
effective, the whole work of relief in New Haven. He was never lacking in
human sympathy, but he eliminated maudlin sentiment. Most of all, he made
need and merit the basis of mercy, and sternly discouraged fraud. Through
him those with hearts of sympathy and either the means to give or the will to
work, were assured that their gifts and their labors were effectively applied
when really they were needed. It is an achievement well worthy to stand
among the important events in New Haven's progress.

The renaissance of the Chamber of Commerce, soon after the beginning of
this Bicentennial period, included many Yale leaders in a most definite way.
As citizens of New Haven, professors and instructors and officers were reached
by the active membership campaign. They found themselves working at a
common task with citizens of New Haven whose ac((uaintanee they had not pre-
viously made. They discovered the community in a sense they had not under-
stood before. They found problems to solve which appealed to their best ability
and knowledge — not infrequently their special knowledge. There were great
modern tasks to be done in New Haven, and here was a wonderfully equipped
and modern university to do them. They had the conscioiisness of unity of
interest between the community and the college; they were about to apply
it. So we have such undertakings as the scientific suppression of the smoke
nuisance; the attacking of New Haven's peculiar sewage disposal problem; the
elimination of the mosquito pest. There was created a .system of co-operation,
through the Chamber of Commerce, between the university and some of the
factories of the city, for the application of efficiency methods, for the improve-
ment in various ways of the conditions of employes.

These are glimpses of what was happening. The progress was slow, the
benefit sometimes nebulous. But the idea was forming. The leaders of Yale

AND EASTERN NEW HAVEN COUNTY 43

were living Uie life of the city. They were making its problems their own.
They were, in many ways l)esides their participation in the social service of
Lowell House social settlement — an institution, by the way, in whose progress
Yale idealists had from the first a definite part — carrying into practical appli-
cation its motto and inspiration,

"Not what we give but what we share,
For the gift without the giver is bare."

CHAPTER VII
THE DOOES THROWN OPEN

THE SUNDAY OPENING OP THE YALE SCIENTIFIC AND AET COLLECTIONS AND THE

WELCOME TO WOOLSEY HALL YALE's INVITATION OP THE PEOPLE TO HER

ATHLETIC FEASTS

But something still was lacking to bring consciousness, both to Yale and to
the people of the New Haven family with which it dwells, of their reciprocal
relation. To the many Yale was still a thing apart. The advantages of Yale,
as they saw them, were only for the favored few who entered the gates on
payment of an admission fee, as it were. There was the great university plant,
with its multiplying buildings, seen only by some who entei'ed through the
invitation of Yale friends. There was Peabody Museum, with its wonderful and
growing natural history and scientific collections, open to the public on week
days, but at hours when only the few could avail themselves of the opportunity.
There was the Art School collection, containing some of the rarest and most
instructive art of the nation, having especial value for the people of New Haven
and Connecticut, restricted in the same way. There was Woolsey Hall and its
musical offerings, to be sure, but aside from the Symphony Orchestra concerts,
providing little of a popular nature, and always with a substantial admission
fee attached. There were Yale's athletic games, but there were restrictions, too.
Their managers did not for a long time awaken to the need and advantage for
them of catering, so to speak, to the New Haven public. In a word, something
needed to be done to popularize Yale.

And this was not wholly because the community needed Yale. It was getting
along very well by itself, it believed. It had its own music, its own amusements,
its own education, its own athletics. Yale needed the public. The better under-
standing still to be attained was what was to remove entirely the feeling of
antagonism between New Haven and Yale, and make tangible and fully real-
ized the fact of their historical and destined unity. Yale must make a sacrifice,
in some measure, to bring that about.

There was no citizen of modern New Haven who saw this more clearly than
did George Dudley Seymour, who soon after 1900 enlarged his already wide
acquaintance with the people of his community by fathering the sometimes

>«s.^sea?.:i^::>f:

SKULL AND BONES FRATERN^TY HOUSE, YALE UXIVKRSITV, Xi:\\- ]IA\I:N

:^LROLL AND KEYS FRATERNITY HOUSE. YALK IXIYERSITY. NEW HAYEX

AND EASTERN NEW HAVEN COUNTY 45

despised but destined to be useful "city beautiful" plan. A loyal and under-
standing son of Yale, he was also loyal and wise for New Haven. Now he
attacked the problem of bringing in a better harmony between- the university and
the town. His first j^roposal was very simple. Let Yale extend to certain parts
of Sunday afternoons, in all but the summer months, the hours of public opening
of Peabody Museum and the Art School. It was so simple a plan that it failed,
at first, to create a sensation.

But Mr. Seymour was not surprised or discouraged. He knew the forces
of conservatism with which he had to contend. He knew that no suggestion takes
in New Haven on its first application. So, gently but fii'mly, he returned
repeatedly to the attack. He frankly put the suggestion to the ofScials of Yale.
Through the newspapers he proposed the thing to the public. He I'eceived
substantial backing from at least one newspaper, which kept the matter before
the public insistently until the battle was won.

For it was won, and sooner than might be expected, perhaps. In 1908 Yale
University formally announced that it would, beginning with November, open
the museum and the Art School on Sunday afternoons from 2 :30 to 5. It may
perhaps be suspected that tlie uuiversity did this more from the motives which
influenced the "unjust judge'' than out of faith that there would be a response
from the public sufficient to justifj- the concession. Even Mr. Seymour and
those who were with him in the endeavor were weak in the faith, at first. But
the newspapers did their part in telling the public of the innovation, and men-
tioning the hours of the openings. Some of them went further, editorially, by
pointing out the significance of the change. The result was such as pleasantly
to astound Yale and cordially to strengthen the faith of those who had worked
for this change. The public responded in an intelligent, not a spasmodic manner.
Those who came were not mere curiosity seekers. The response was steady,
appreciative, not sensational. The first year the average number of visitors to
the two exhibits on Sunday afternoons was not far from two hundred, and the
attendance was well maintained until the end of April, when the university
judged it wise to end the sea.son. This was some four months longer, there
is reason to believe, than some of the officers had believed the "fad" would last.

There -was some anxiety on the part of those who had promoted the plan to
see whether Yale would remember to resume the arrangement in the following
fall. To tell the truth, they did not trust entirely to Yale's memory. And the
Sunday openings were resumed that season, with the definite announcement that
they would continue to April. They have continued since, each season up to the
present writing. The results have eminently justified the continuance. Tlie
New Haven public has steadily used these exhibits for instruction, not for
curiosity.

Soon after the first opening, the opportunity was enlarged by adding the
Steinert collection of musical instruments in Memorial Hall, and later the
School of Religion's archaeological exhibits were also opened on Sunday
afternoons.

A few years after the completion of Woolsey Hall and its organ, Harry B.

46 A MODERN HISTORY OF NEW HAVEN

Jepson, son of New Haven's loved old music master, Prof. Benjamin Jepson, now
Battel] professor of music at Yale, inaugurated the custom of Monday afternoon
organ recitals, for which a small admission was charged. These were enjoyed by
many hundreds of music lovers, but their hour was such that the attendance was
always limited. Joining in the movement of opening Yale's doors to the larger
public. Professor Jepson now introduced two popular Sunday afternoon organ
recitals in the season, one in the Christmas holidays, the other at Easter, both
free to the public. These were from the start overwhelmingly attended, and
Professor Jepson found it desirable, in a few years, to enlarge their- number,
giving a series of recitals every Sunday afternoon through January and Febru-
ary, in addition to the Christmas and Easter ones. It is needless to add that
these opportunities were improved to the fullest extent.

These results had opened the eyes of Yale's governors to the virtue of fellow-
ship with the community. The result was the adoption of the policy of offering
or granting the use of Woolsey Hall as a place, in general, for public mass
meetings. Enterprises which moved for the common good, which called together
large gatherings of the people, found the doors of the great assembly hall open
for them. Conventions representing or interesting any considerable number of
the people of New Haven or of a wider circle had only to ask to receive Yale's
hospitality, and often it was offered. The dining hall was likewise opened to many
great banquets, notably those of the Chamber of Commerce, where men of
international reputation, presidents of the nation and publicists of large emi-
nence, were among the speakers. Organizations of New Haven men and women,
having occasion to gather for a banquet in greater numbers than any other
banquet hall in town could accommodate, met around the tables of this noble
banquet room, where the portraits of former presidents of Yale looked down
on scenes such as the men in their lifetime had never dreamed of seeing.

The gates were open, but there was another important means by which Yale
was "getting solid" with people who might never have entered through Peabody
or the Art School or any of the doors of the great building at the corner of
College and Grove streets. Yale athletics had a growing hold on the New Haven
public. Yale was the ideal, in sporting achievement, of the average young man
of the town. Yale games, whether in baseball or football, have always had an
attraction over games by other than college players. The attendance at these
games constantly increased, but the Yale athletic management set out to popular-
ize them still further. It placed the prices on its early season games at a point
attractive to the public, and the public responded. Many a "Brown game,"
even before the days of the Bowl, had an attendance rivaling that of a Yale-
Princeton game in the 'nineties.

But not all of this attendance was always paid, to the credit of Yale. Some
years liefore the new field was developed or the Bowl built, in the earlier days
of the regime of Everard Thompson as the manager of the Yale ticket depart-

AND EASTERN NEW HAVEN COUNTY 47

ment, the plan of offering football tickets as rewards of merit in the New Haven
High School was inaugurated. On a basis which the teachers arranged, each
week a certain number of pupils who had shown an approved proficiency in
scholarship or effort were given free tickets to the Saturday game. The number
rose, at one time, as high as two thousand at a game, and every son and daughter,
we may easily imagine, was a loyal "■rooter" for Yale. It is easy to see the
pace at which Yale's friendships grew liy this process.

• Then there was the "Brown game," which became an annual institution in
New Haven. Each year, the week before the big game with Harvard or Prince-
ton, Yale played the team from Brown University. That enterprising institution
at Providence had achieved a substantial reputation by sending up for two suc-
cessive years in the early nineteen hundreds a team whicli very neatly "trimmed"
Yale — more of a feat at that time than it was a decade later. There were many
New Haveners, in and out of the college, who liked to watch that game. Inci-
dental mention might be made of the "Whiffenpoofs, " a unique body of Yale
vaudevillians, who about this time took it upon themselves to provide burlesifue
entertainment in the intermissions of this jiarticular game.

New Haven always saw this game. Youthful New Haven also saw it, because
of another pleasant custom. It began witli Judge Albei't McClellan Mathewson,
who had a sort of George Junior RepulJic organization of boys which he called
the Good Government Club. Many of them were boys unlikely to have money to
spend to see a football game. He put the ease liefore the Yale athletic authorities,
and they agreed to admit free, in a bod.y, as many boys as Judge Mathewson
would sponsor. Naturally, the plan met great favor with the boys, and naturally,
too, the number of those willing to come in under the judge's charge grew
yearly. Starting with a hundred or a little over, it increased by the addition
of newsboys, members of boys' clubs and schoolboys in general until the group
down at one end of the stands imnibered at times 1,500. Their loyalty and their
enthusiasm heightened the enjoyment of the game alike for players and
spectators.

There was still a drawback, in the athletic department. New Haven, as its
fellowship with Yale increased, became increasingly desirous of seeing the "big:
game" which was the climax of the bootball season. But there was no more room
cm the old football staiuls, then seating 35,000 at tlie most, than was required b.y
the Yale multitude — that is, the graduates, undergraduates and their friends.
Except as thej- borrowed applications for tickets, or as they were included in the
invited groups. New Haven people were limited to a rapidly disappearing public
sale of tickets. In the closing years of the old stand, there was no public sale.

The long hoped-for football stadium, which turned out to be a Bowl, completed
in time for the Yale-Harvard game of 1914, had offered another opportunity
for the co-operation of Yale and New Haven. It was a great financial undertak-
ing, and Yale offered New Haven money a chance to share in it. The offer was
gladly accepted by many men who had no alumni connection with the college, for
it included the privilege of subscribing each year for a certain number of
tickets for the big game for each one hundred dollars cash subscribed for the

48 A MODERN HISTORY OF NEW HAVEN

Bowl. In this way a considerable number of the men of New Haven's affairs
came to feel a share in one of the gi-eat enterprises of the university, and came
into intimate touch with one important feature of its life.

The completion of the Bowl, with its initial seating capacity of 65,000, seemed
to offer to everyone who desired it a chance to see the great game. Provisions
had been made to extend 'the seat sale, not only generally to the New Haven
public, but throughout the state. What was the consternation, then, of Mana-
ger Thompson to find, as the time for the game approached, that he had appli-
cations for tickets something like 25,000 in excess of the number of seats which
even the great amphitheater would provide. Immediately some 8,000 extra
seats were added, but eveu then the most heroic measui'es had to be adopted
to keep the attendance within the capacity. Conditions somewhat similar pre-
vailed in 1915. But in both years the management was loyal to New Haven.
The Chamber of Commerce had expected a block of about 2,000 seats at the
game which opened the Bowl, and it was not disappointed. In 1916 the pressure
was even greater, but again the applicants "of the Chamber of Commerce were
supplied.

These are evidences of the degree to which the animosity between the college
and the public in the Nineteenth century had changed to harmony in the
Twentieth. There were many others, less obvious but even more important. The
university had come to realize its relation and its duty to the community with
which it was inseparably identified, and to do something about it. The community
had begun to appreciate the honor and advantage offered by the existence of Yale.
And there was to be a tangible demonstration of this relation which should
attract the attention and enlist the participation of a great many who had not
previously noticed. That was the Pageant of 1916, of whose details we shall
proceed to learn.

CHAPTER VIII
THE SEAL OF THE UNION

THE PAGEANT OF 1916, ITS PREPARATION AND HISTORIC CELEBRATION IN BATTELL
CHAPEL THE GREAT SPECTACLE AT THE BOWL

The "wedding" of New Haven and Yale took place when the trustees of the
collegiate school, in session at New Haven on October 17. 1716, formally though
not unanimously voted that the school, or college, should be established in New
Haven. Preparations suitably to celeln'ate that wedding's two hundredth anni-
versary began considerably earlier than October in the year 1916. The officers
of Yale, indeed, had for several years realized that the event should have a
unique celebration, and had begun their plans for one.

Early in 1916. there was appointed on behalf of Yale a general committee
consisting of Eli Whitney, chairman ; Edwin Rogers Embree, secretar.y ; Rev.
Joseph Anderson and Mr. Otto Tremont Bannard of the corporation, and
eighteen other members of the faculty and prominent graduates of Yale. The
City of New Haven appointed a citizens' committee of thirty-eight members, of
which flavor Frank James Rice was chairman. From these were chosen an
executive committee, on behalf of Yale' of Francis Hartman Markoe, Edwin
Rogers Embree, Howell Cheney. Frederick Blair Johnson and Prof. Clarence
Whittlesey Mendell ; on behalf of New Haven of Mayor Frank James Rice, Vice
Mayor Samuel Campner, Joseph Edward Hubinger, James Thomas Moran,
Louis Ezekiel Stoddard, and Isaac Moses L^llman.

Mr. Markoe, a Yale graduate with a considerable experience in similar under-
takings, was chosen master of the Pageant — for the Pageant was to be the central
feature of the celebration. His assistants were Prof. Jack Randall Crawford
and Dennis Cleugh as stage manager. Prof. George H. Xettleton was editor
of the Book of the Pageant. Pi'of. David Stanley Smith was chosen master of
the music, and Miss Christine Herter was the artist of the Pageant. "Sirs. Dennis
Cleugh was mistress of the robes, Frederick Blair Johnson was business manager
and Charles Emerson Cooke director of publicity.

Thus ofiSeered, the gi-eat undertaking was launched early in the year. The
committees, and a number of guests representing various activities of the city
which it was expected to enlist in the Pageant, met at luncheon in Memorial

Vol 7—4

50 A :\IOUERN HISTORY OF NEW HAVEN

Hall early in the spring, and the plans for the project were presented in some
detail. There was the most evident enthusiasm, and earnest pledges on the part
of several of the most infiuential citizens to do all in their power to carry the
project to success. Those pledges were faithfully kept.

All spring, all summer, the committees and sub-committees, the pageant
officers and their aids, labored unceasingly. There was to be an elaborate pro-
gram — religious, scholastic, historical, literary — covering the three days of Octo-
ber 20, 21 and 22, but the great day was to be that of the Pageant, Saturday,
the twenty-first. Waiving the exact date of the anniversary, Saturday was
chosen because of the number of school children it was proposed to enlist in
the production, and because of the better opportunity the day afforded for the
attendance of the people. It was proposed to have about 7,000 participants in
the various scenes of the Pageant. Different departments of the university,
several of the graduate classes, alumni organizations of other colleges, the Gov-
ernor's Foot Guards, the Grand Army of the Republic, the Sons of Veterans,
several chajiters of the Daughters of the American Revolution, the Young
AVomen's Christian Association, the New Haven Caledonian Club, several lodges
of the Order of Red Men, the Naval Militia, the Spanish War veterans, the
Yale Battery and several other organizations, besides a large number of unat-
tached individuals, were represented in the cast. There was an endless detail
of costumes to be provided, and the rehearsals for the play constituted, when
the number and variety of the participants is considered, a tremendous under-
taking. There were many discouraging features. But the committee for the
university and the citizens worked faithfully on. And the end crowned their
lal)or and justified their faith.

The third week in October of 1916 promised to be much like other mid-
autumn weeks in our uncertain New England climate. As the crowning require-
ment to the Pageant's success was good weather, its developments, weather-
wise, were somewhat anxiou.sly watched. The opening feature of the program
was the repetition of John Jay Chapman's Florentine masque, '"Cupid and
Psyche," which had been given at the Art School in June, and for that the
weather did not so much matter. It was a somewhat severely classical and dis-
tinctly college event, but as it was given in commodious Woolsey Hall, it had an
audience containing many of the townspeople. There was some fear as to how the
somewhat delicate and in a sense parlor event would fit into massive Woolsey Hall,
but if it may be judged by the enthusiasm of the audience, it was in every respect
a success. It was produced by ladies of New Haven, and though wholly of
Yale authorship, was in its nature especially appropriate to celebrate the union
of the college and the town.

Friday afternoon had been rainy, and Saturday forenoon continued the
storm. Up to mid-forenoon, the prospect was decidedly unpromising. The
hearts of the thousands to whom the Pageant meant so much were as gloomy as
the weather. There had been a dress rehearsal of the spectacle on the previous
Saturday, which had raised many hopes. But so much depended on the weather !

Meanwhile, there were some historical exercises on Saturday forenoon. In

YA\A-: Srllddl, OF ItKLK.KiX. NKW ll.WI.N

BATTELL CHAPEL, YALE UNIVERSITY. XEW HAVEN

AND EASTEKN NEW HAVEN COUNTY 5]

the excitement and anxiety, they were overlooked by too many New Haven
people. Battell Chapel was entirely sufficient to accommodate all who went to
hear them. It was an important and remarkable program, worthy of mention
in some detail.

Most gracefully, as is his wont. President Hadley opened the exercises with
his tribute, on behalf of the university, to New Haven. Quoting at the start
from Jeremy Duunner's letter to Governor Gurdon Saltonstall, in which he
felicitated New Haven on the happy consummation of the luiptials. and mentioned
Elihu Yale's satisfaction thereat, President Hadlej- paid tribute, first to the
ministers whose unflagging zeal and loyalty to New Haven had so much to do
with bringing it about, and second to the community whose real substance
deserved and won the institution for its own. He praised the hard work and hard
cash of the New Haven citizens by which they enabled John Davenport the
younger to exult in that realization of which the first John Davenport was
denied, and closed by saying:

"To the descendants and successors of those that builded the house, no less
than those that first taught therein, high honor and cordial congratulation
ai-e this day due."

Of the responses by the city the first was, appropriately, by the lineal de-
scendant in office of John Davenport and James Pierpont, the twentieth century
pastor of Center Church on the Green. Discerningly, appreciatively, did the
Rev. Dr. Oscar E. ilaurer make reply. Gracefully he referred to the ambition of
his first predecessor to be the founder of a college in New Haven, and to the
inibreakable bond, none the less close and firm because it was left to those who
came after John Davenport to realize the fulfilment of his prophecy, between
Center Church and Yale University. But he spoke as well for all the churches
of New Haven and Connecticut, which united in rejoicing at the union and its
anniversary. "Yale and the church," he said, "are united in a common destiny,
their mission is a common mission ; and so, Mr. President, speaking for the
churches of New Haven and Connecticut, deeply thankful for all the blessed
ties that have bound us together in the past, I pledge to you our continued
devotion and loyalty for the years that lie ahead, and the assurance of our
fervent prayer that Yale and the Church may together go on and ever on in
their holy mission of Truth and Light."

Mayor Frank J. Rice was not able to represent the city on that occasion.
As we shall see, his active work for the city he loved was over, and he was
compelled to content himself with watching from the distance the co^j^summation
of the celebration in which he had taken so great an interest. Samuel Campner,
acting mayor, responded for the city in his place, and did so with an under-
standing eminently commendable. He rejoiced in the older history of Yale,
that part of it which belonged to the era before New Haven. But he saw it now
as only a background to the new, the greater Yale which was largely liecause
of the union now being celebrated. He made clear the existence of the spirit
of entire harriiony between the New Haven which is and the Yale which is, and
looked hopefully forward. "May the life of Yale and of New Haven," he hoped,

52 A MODERN HISTORY OF NEW HAVEN

"flow together through the centuries of the future as one life, one unit, one
liody politic — tlie einbodiinent of one idea — the expression of the lofty, pro-
gressive, God-fearing and God-serving spirit of free America."

Fittingly closing the exercises was the scholarly, complete historical address
of Prof. Williston Walker. With the historian's sense of proportion, with the
understanding of the scholar, with the eloquence of one baptized with the spirit
of the hour, he portrayed the development of two hundred years. Going back
of the two century period, however, he showed on what foundation of vision and
sacrifice and holy ambition of the founders was laid the structure raised in New
Haven. Dramatically he told of the struggles of those years ; with what a battle
the college was won for New Haven. Feelingly he drew the picture, touching
in the brighter lights of the understanding which the discerning had from the
first of the proper relation between the college and the community, of true
kinship of the mother and daughter — New Haveu and Yale.

"So today," he concluded, "as we commemorate the two hundredth anni-
versary of the settlement of Yale in New Haveu, it is with gratitude toward
those who in the da.ys of small things made this much possible. They had their
abundant perplexities, their contests, their discouragements. They had, also,
an unconquerable faith, and a courage adequate to their needs. They builded
well, and we have entered into the fruit of their labors. Nor can we forget the
noble succession which for two centuries, in city and in university, has carried
on their work, building fairer and nobler year by year, till we have the New
Haven and the Yale in which we now rejoice. What the future may have in
store none may know : but of this we may be assured, that Yale and New Haven
will continue in inseparable connection, in growing helpfulness each to the
other, and in increasing appreciation of the common advantages of their associ-
ation. May the memories of the last two hundred years he perpetuated and
strengthened in the association and growth of Yale and New Haven for genera-
tions to come."

The heavens smiled on such faith, such brave and thoughtful words. As the
historical worshippers came from Battell Chapel, they found that the October
storm h'ld been transformed to October beauty. Not soon will New Haven,
and especially those who participated in the exercises, forget the beauty of that
afternoon. And who did not participate? Seven thousand men and women,
boys and girls, re])resenting all phases of the ancient and modern life of New
Haven and Yale, were in the moving life, the historical depiction, the glorious
picture and color, Qf the Pageant. And every one had friends. All sides of the
life of the city had been touched in the preparation. All the schools had been
drawn upon. A large number of the societies and organizations of the city had
been woven into the story. No wonder New Haven noticed.

It was such a plot as Shakespeare would have coveted. Here was to he told
a story of two centuries rich with drama, touched with humor, pathos, sentiment,

AND EASTERN NEW HAVEN COUNTY 53

tragedy. Far back of the beginnings of New Haven the writer had gone for his
prologue, to that 1485 when the union of Margaret, daughter of lenkyn ap levau
to Ellis ap Griffith of Cwyddelwern laid the foundation of the house of Yale.
Through the colonial times, with their wealth of romance and fascination of
history he had built the beginning of his story. He had not missed the thrill
and adventure and inspiration of the Revolutionary days. The strifes and the
sacrifices and the abundant human interest of the early Nineteenth century
were faithfully and eft'eetively portrayed. And there was a wealth of modern epi-
.sode to lead up to the climax, the bright realization of the light and truth of the
ancieiit ev'eriastiug union.

Such was the play. And never playwright had such a playhouse. "Some
genius," wrote a chronicler for the Yale Alumni Weekly, "had foreseen the
effects which might be gained in that large amphitheater, the Yale Bowl, on
a clear autumnal day." It was not with fear or misgiving that the management
had accepted the Bowl as the place to stage such a spectacle. Already its visual,
its accoustie, its spectacular qualities had been tested in football and Greek play
and grand opera, and on each trial it had surprisingly responded to every
requirement. Built for football, Iniilt only with the thought conveniently to
gather, comfortably seat and safely disperse mighty multitudes of people, it
had proved to have qualities for conserving and reflecting sound not possessed
by any structure of its sort in America. Now, of course, its qualities for dis-
playing a spectacle were to be especially tested.

]\Iany were the misgivings with which fond parents and sensitive spectators
had looked forward to this afternoon. The costumes which made that feast of
color were flimsy things, poorly qualified for resisting the chill blasts and threat
of frost which the afternoon of the third Saturday in October might easily pro-
vide. And there might be a nip and an eagerness in the air which would make
sitting for three hours to view a pageant less than a thing of joy for those in
the least sensitive to cold. In strange and thrilling measure these fears were
allayed, these misgivings made vain. It was such an October afternoon as even
that rare month might not furnish twice in a dozen years. Out of a sky without
a cloud, through an atmosphere erystally clear, with only just a relieving breeze,
shone the autumn sun. It brought out at their best its spectrum colors, multi-
plied to countless shades that the rainbow never knew, in the costumes of the
participants. Over that rich sward where a month later the dun-clad cohorts
of Harvard and Yale were to race and tear in one of the great games of the
century — and crown the Bowl with a Yale victory to remember — proceeded in
measured dignity the appointed persons of the play.

And over them bent the thousands. The Bowl has seen greater crowds. But
50,000 of the friends of Yale and New Haven, gathered from near and far, with
such a motive and for such a sight, is a multitude not to be despised. Its own
color and variety, its life and its magnetic expectancy, completed the wonder
of the occasion.

It is two o'clock on that never-to-be-forgotten afternoon, and though this
is an amateur production, and one of the most difficult ever handled, Director

54 A MODERN HISTORY OF NEW HAVEN

Markoe is ready. But before the gates are opened, there is a wondrous prelude.
At one end of the great amphitheater, under a reflecting canopy, there is such an
aggregation of bands as even music-blessed New Haven never had on one plat-
form. And back of them is a chorus of 500 people. It is the Derby Choral
Society — neighbors glad to share in the great service. Led by Professor William
Edward Haesche, who has written the music, it launches into the stately numbers
of Charlton ilincr Lewis's "Invitation to the Pageant."" Its opening words are
fulfilled before the people, and seem to have been prophetic:

October "s glory ripens to its close;

The flaunting splendors fade ; yet still abides
The warm sun. wizarding from brown to rose

The bastioned refuge of the Regicides.

And the eastern gates open, burst by a noise of trumpets. From out their
portals comes a procession of the Middle Ages. Pages and bards and men-at-
arms lead the way for maids and gentlemen and ladies in their gayest garb.
For it is nothing less than the bridal procession of the fair Margaret. Forth she
comes M'ith her knightly bridegroom, each riding upon a horse that seems to
sense the ancient dignity of the occasion. It is the first glimpse of the glory of
color that shall be. For on Margaret and her maidens, on pages and on the
caparisoned horses, shines a blazonry of many hues that needs l)ut the dun
garb of the men — so like, in this respect, to tlie modern wedding — to Itring out by
contrast its magnificence. And so was Margaret wedded to the brave Ellis ap
Griffith. So was the house of Yale founded. The romance, the imagery of the
scene grip the beholder.

But there is no lingering. This is only the prelude. The Pageant has not
yet begun, and the play's the thing. As silently as they came the flashing cos-
tumes are gone. The sorely tried nerves of the amazed modern New Haven
horses are soothed again in the free air outside the echoing portals of the Bowl.
And from another portal bursts a strangely different scene. Stifdy come Pastor
Davenport and Governor Eaton, leading their party of pilgi'ims, weary from
their long voyage, and muddy from their elimb up the red clay banks of the
creek. With surprising promptness comes from another quai'ter a mournful
procession of Quinuipiacs, and the scene shifts in fancy to the meadows of Morris
Cove. Boi-ne on a litter is Shaumpishuh, sister of the Sachem Momauguin,
sick unto death. The women wail their lament to the Great Spirit. The tribe
dances its medicine dance. There is all this in the swift scene, and if one makes
a little allowance for the ardor of the unpracticed young Indian actors, he gets
the serious import of it. Still more life is injected by the sudden appearance of
the war-painted Moh'awks — they are at their old game of demanding tribute.

But the Quinnipiacs fear the death of the pestilence more than they fear the
death of battle. They resist and overcome the tribute-seekers. Whereupon they
note the presence of the pilgrims, whom they accept on faith at once as friends.
The pilgrims give thanks for their deliverance from the perils of the sea, and
for their friendly greeting. But Shaumpishuh cannot sui'vive, and the procession
now takes up a real lament for the dead, and proceeds sadly out from the portals.

56 A MODERN HISTORY OF NEW HAVEN

matter of fact, despicable things compared with the rich garb of the Foot Guards
—figure again. It is a solemn scene. We are spared, of course, any attempt
at the execution itself, but the grim preparations are there. We are glad, on
the whole, when the scene vanishes through the portals.

There is a richness of costume, especially feminine, in the scene representing
the visit of Washington to New Haven after he became President. We have the
men in stately grandeur. And Washington and his stafif ride well, assisted by
one or two trick horses such as, probably, would greatly have annoyed the old
general in his time. Then the field clears, and we are ready for another interlude
— an Allegory of War and Peace.

It was not the intention, evidently, to paint war in any attractive colors.
These gnome-like figures, hooded and cloaked in brown, who come crouching
in to the droning of dismal music, are the spirits of Starved Desire and Fear
of Brotherhood. Others no more attractive follow, the warped souls of Dema-
gogues and Self Lovers, and these unite to utter, in something like song, "The
Wise Voice of the Old, Deep, Unchanging World." But the chorus strengthens
by the addition to the Holy Servants of war's sacrifice, the Young Men Who Have
Found Their Manhood. Presently join these the Contented Dead, and then
the mothers who raise their boys to be soldiers, to speak in flippant phrase.
There is weird and thunderous music, and Life's Wastrels cavort over the scene.
The Noble Wives, the Old Men, the Calm Fathers and other Heroic Hearts follow
in quick succession, chanting a solemn hymn. Then the music changes, a hush
comes over the wild clamor, and sweet, calm, majestic, radiant Peace is there,
with the little children in wJiite robes playing about her. The Rout of War
falls back from the altar, the weary sufferers welcome Peace, and the air is rent
with a shout that is greater than victory. Brimming over the rim of the Bowl
pour down from all sides the processions of Peace — ^Youth and Dawn and Spring,
waving blossoming branches and singing a song of the beauty of sweet nature.
Summer, Day and Growth follow with golden boughs of laurel, singing their
hymn of praise. Evening, Autumn and Completion sing an evening hymn,
which merges in the one general chant of peace as all advance with their offerings
of praise, and crown Peace forever.

The opening scenes of the nineteenth century episode are in lighter vein.
Well may the Town and Gown riots be treated lightly, for they are things of
the past. They are nothing more than comedy, as presented. There is war,
to be sure, between the firemen and the footballists, and there is some attempt
to suggest what a terrible thing this might be, but with the machinery at hand,
and the evident refusal of the actors to take the thing seriously, there is litlle
to (k) but laugh.

The Burial of Euclid, of course, is but a college prank. It proves to be no
more than a fairly well rehearsed performance of the Whift'enpoofs. One
wonders if the boys themselves realize how important a thing it was in its day.
It is good fun, which serves fairly well to relieve the sobriety of what must be,
in the main, a serious performance.

There is not a little of burlesque, little as it is meant so, in the next scene.

AND EASTERN NEW HAVEN COUNTY 57

This is a depiction of the Kansas Volunteers, an ante-Civil war plan to aliolish
slavery, which was nipped in the bud. We have citizens of New Haven in queer,
bottle-green tail coats, and flat-topped hats. The relieving effect of feminine
costume is there, improving the opportunity of the strange fashions of 1856.
Henry W^ard Beecher is supposed to appear and make an address. The re-
cruits are escorted on their way in very impressive fashion, if one chooses to
take it so.

The death of Theodore Winthrop, reviving an almost forgotten episode of
Yale in the Civil war, is made memorable by the earnest participation of almost
the entire strength of the Grand Army posts of New Haven and vicinity. Win-
throp was the first northern ofificer to fall in the battles of this war, and the
scene depicts the request for his body by his comrades and its formal surrender,
with full military honors, by the Confederate troops. The men in Gi'ay ai'e the
product of the costumer and the stage manager, though they do their parts well,
but these men in Blue, with their slouch and tasseled felt hats — they are living
over again scenes that are still vivid in their memories. Their part in this scene,
carried out to the last solenni detail of military exactness, makes a tremendous
impression on all beholders. It is an historic event, and in it alone the Pageant
repays all it cost. It is worth our while to pause here and read, from Brian
Hooker's masterpiece of description of the whole Pageant, his thrilling touch
of that particiilar scene :

"Now comes a company of gray-clad soldiers through the western gate. They
stack their rifles and lounge about with a casual air of waiting for someone. So
they are, and so are we ; and after plenty of time, out come the Union soldiers
on the other side, to the small squealing of one fife and the beat of two rather
tremulous drums. These are no dressed-up mummers, but the very men them-
selves: Grand Army men, some 200 of them; their old blue uniforms hanging
loose over shrunken shoulders — and their rusty old Springfields at the carry.
There is no hurrying these old fellows. Very deliberately, very professionally,
with the otf-hand, almost clumsy correctness of men to whom the drill is no new
lesson but the memory of an old business, they form in line facing the Southern-
ers. Order arms. Parade rest. Officers to the front. And the small group
with its flag of truce goes out to meet the enemy with all military formality, and
to receive Colonel Winthrop 's body in its new pine eofiin. Present arms. The
Confederates fire a salute. The coffin is borne back to the line in Blue. Another
salute is fired. They wheel slowly into column and with arms reversed start
slowly to move away. And then something happens. For ten minutes those two
hundred or so old gentlemen of our fathers' times have been going through what
for them was not play-acting but the very truth itself. For ten minutes they
have stood there remembering; and their memory reaches out and strikes the
watching multitudes like an invisible wave. As the long column plods toward the
stands, the grim gray heads held high and the thin fife piping a cracked hymn
tune, .30,000 people are on their feet and uncovered, not knowing why or how ;
and the applause rises and swells and crackles into one deep roar! Someone
whispers: 'God! look at their faces!' And we look, and read things written

58 A .MODERN IIISTOKY OF NEW HAVEN

there. These men did not keep us out of war. They faced it, and brought us
through on the right side. They were too proud to fight with words alone. They
fought with more than words; and the tire of things we cannot understand
shines on their steady faces. In all the Pageant there has been nothing like this ;
for the rest was allegory and reminiscence; but this is a resurrection."

There is less of imagery and more of realism in the third Interlude, wherein
certain ladies and gentlemen of New Haven and the university improve the
opportunity to exploit the wonderful costumes of the Civil war period. It is,
as the program tells us, "a Iloopskirt Prom." Or, as the more dignitied Book of
the Pageant hath it, "the Wooden Spoon Prom." It is depicted with such
dignity as the cumbersome costumes compel on the field before us, and is soon
over. It seems to lack something, after the previous interludes.

For the fourth or modern episode the Book of the Pageant had a series of
fourteen impressive panels, which were to be presented as tableaux. But the
afternoon draws near its close, and if the finale is to he presented while yet the
autumn sun will give life to its color, something must be cut. So the Yale
Battery, the triumph of Mars which many have been waiting to see comes on.
Refreshed after the terrors of Tobyhanna, trim in olive-green khaki, the soldier
boys bring on their guns and go through their evolutions, ending with a salute
which rattles the nerves of the timid and tills the Bowl with the smell of powder.
The din of battle dies away, the faithful Boy Scouts who have been doing page
duty betw^een the acts make their last appearance, and we are ready for the finale.

The program has warned that any who want to hurry away must do so before
this finale, because the portals will be in use by the performers for a little time
after it. Unfortmiate are they who thought they could not wait. It is the
climax, the summary, the ensemble, all in one. It returns to the glory of imagery,
it employs the feast of color. In it shines the Light and out of it stands the
Truth of Yale. The Bride of New Haven, the Mother of Colleges and of Men.
herein is glorified.

Throned amid lilies and attended by blue-clad figures representing the nine
departments. Mother Yale is borne in, while around her throng and flow again
her water-children, the Waves of the first interlude. Then from out each portal
comes a beautifully gowned woman — thirty of them, representing the thirty
colleges of which Yale is the mother. Then, all at once, high at the crest of every
aisle of the vast Bowl, appears a wind-blown figure as if at the rim of the
horizon. There is a pause as these figures spread their arms like wings. A
little more, and there are po\iring into the Bowl from every portal the whole
of the 7,000 who have participated in the Pageant. All the pomp, all the color,
all the glory are there. They gather and gi-oup themselves appropriately, on
a ]n-eviously arranged plan of effect. '"'The whole Pageant at once: all places
and times together, spirit and substance, hero and jester, history and tradition
and dream."

The great crowd rises from its seats. Nothing must be lost of such a scene.
Its like will never come again. The Bowl will see strange sights and witness
brave deeds. It has wonderful times ahead. But there can be only one Pageant

AND EASTERN NEW HAVEN COUNTY 59

therein, and this is the supreme moment of that Pageant. The multitude stands
as if entranced, while slowly the mass untwines, resolves itself into a solemn
march, chanting the grand old hymn of call to worship:

Lord God Almighty !
Who hast blessed our fathers.
Bless us and guide us by
Thy Holy Light.

Slowly the grandeur and glory and song melt into the portals, and presently
the velvet green of the field is as quiet and serene as if it had been untrodden.
So far as concerns the scene of its production, the Pageant of 1916 is a thing
of memory only.

The Pageant is not over. New Haven had jiarticipated generously in the
main production, Ijut the city as an organization had its part. For the three
days of the celebration the historic old Green, for more than two centuries a
sharer in every event that had concerned Yale and New Haven, had been
notably decorated in honor of the occasion. From the Liberty pole as a center,
streamers of white and blue bunting extended to the four corners and sides of
the lower Green. Yale and New Haven seals were set on standards all around
the Green. Underneath and around the Liberty pole was a canopy or court of
honor, where on that Saturday night after the Pageant a band played to some
20,000 people, while searchlights from the neighboring buildings played upon
the scene.

The closing event of the great occasion was next day at Woolsey Hall, when
President Hadley preached the anniversary sermon. Fittingly he had chosen
his text, "For we are members one of another." It was a thoughtful, con-
vincing presentation of the oneness of Yale and New Haven well worthy to
close this celebration. Especially did it show that the men who have honored
Yale most have also honored the city most : that their highest ideals and highest
service have been for the two together; that in the achievements of such men
"college and city can claim an equal share and look with equal measure of
pride." He dwelt not altogether in the past; he gave good advice. Admitting
that there have been misunderstandings, he sought to show how they may be
avoided in the future, how harmony that has less of the name and more of the
fact can be attained. He dwelt on the ideal which he had preached before, of
Yale and Yale men in public service. Applying this directly to the relations of
Yale men and the city in which they live he said :

"In order to make this spirit of mutual understanding effective and useful
we must develop tlie habit of co-operation betw^een city and college. The best
way to understand one another is to work together. We have been too much
absorbed in our separate problems — the teacher with his teaching, the scholar
with his studies, the merchant with his business, the politician with his politics.
These things are a large part of life, but they are not the whole of life. The
affairs of society are as important as each man's private affairs; and the affairs
of society cannot be properly managed unless the men of theoiy and the men

60 A MODEKN HISTORY OF NEW HAVEN

of practice act together in managing tbeni. This is becoming more and more
obvious as years go on. Questions of public education, of public administration
and of public morality are every day coming more and more into the fore-
ground. ' '

In such practical words the president of Yale recognized that the ideal had
not been attained, while felicitating his hearers on the measure of harmony
which the Pageant celebration had sealed. The Pageant was over ; he was draw-
ing some lessons from it. Much as had been attained, it was only a glimpse of
what might be. But at least New Haven and Yale had bj' this two hundredth
anniversary celebration come into the consciousness that they were one, and that
their future progress must at least be along parallel, not divergent lines.

CHAPTER IX
THE OLD AND THE NEW

THE CONTRAST OF THE CENTURIES AND THE ELEMENTS THAT MAKE IT — A GENERAL
GLIMPSE OF TWENTIETH CENTURY NEW HAVEN

We have seen the small and difficult beginnings of New Haven. We have
seen that, ambitious as was the plan of the founders, they were content, after
a few hard knocks from fate, to take what the gods sent them, and maintain their
•existence. It looked for many years as though New Haven would have to be
content among the minor cities of Connecticut. Through the latter half of the
seventeenth and all through the eighteenth centuries, New Haven had half a
dozen rivals that equalled or surpassed her in size. It was not until 1820
that New Haven positively took first place, stepping into the rank whic^i she
has maintained so long.

It was apparent almost from the first, to be sure, that New Haven was to be
one of the most important towns of the state, whatever its size. Its rank was
so impressive that Hartford was, from early in the eighteenth century, fain to
share with it the honor of being the capital of the state. The establishment of the
college in New Haven at once gave it a prestige as a center of education and in-
fluence, a source of supply of the state's professional men and leaders. Then,
with the beginning of the nineteenth centiuy, it began to forge ahead in physical
size, until it became noticeably a leader in population, and for a long time, in
wealth.

But New Haven was never a boom town. It developed slowly, it grew steadily,
not spasmodically. Conservatism became characteristic of it. Conservative it
has remained until now. All through the nineteenth century, while steadily
growing in strength and substance, it never outwardly startled the beholder.
Those who really knew the city came to love it for its "parts" rather than for
ostentatious prosperity. It was a city of traditions and history, a city content
to have intensive rather than extensive growth.

There were, as we have noticed, some who wearied of having their city known
merely as "the seat of Yale college." Tliey longed to have other qualities of
New Haven, which to them seemed more important, bi'ought to the front. They
knew that the city had, and had long possessed, manufacturing institutions, for

62 A MODERN HISTORY OF NEW HAVEN

instauee, qualilied to make it iuteriiatioiially famous. Ivnowledge of these was
not wholly suppressed, and in the "geographies" of the latter nineteenth century,
New Haven became rated as the home of the clock and the producer of fine
carriages and ferocious tirearms, as well as the home of Yale.

Yet New Haven had not awakened as the modernists would like to see it.
Its great manufacturers and its substantial merchants, knowing within them-
selves that they had substance and quality, were willing to keep the information
to themselves and to a few of their people. Their business w'as prospering. The
discerning took their goods. Their trade was increasing, according to their
standards. Why should they ask for more .' The age of advertising had not
arrived, at least not in New Haven. A chamber of commerce — and New Haven
had possessed such an institution since 1794 — was a dignified commercial club
to the members of those days. It held a banquet once a year, and that was suffi-
cient to justify its existence. There came a time when somebody pointedly asked
what it did between meals, but that was later.

Such, in more material particulars, was the New Haven which woke on
the morn of its 264th year when it celebrated with Yale the completed two
centuries. The opening of the twentieth century had seen a different New Haven,
if it had but known it. Things had come to it to make it different. The tele-
phone had come. In 1878 New Haven had been the place of the establishment
of the first telephone exchange in America, and its original directory of sub-
scribers, printed on one side of a fairly small sheet of paper, is a curiosity to
exhibit today beside the 400 pages of the Southern New England Telephone
Company's big directory of Connecticut, with its over 66,000 subscl'ibers in New
Haven.

The electric railway had come. When, in 1892, the first electric car, un-
loaded from a freight at the New Haven station, came by its own power from
the station to the Green, horses drew all the cars on the few street railways
of New Haven. Still, and for several years later, they were keeping a spare
horse at the corner of Elm and State streets, to help the loaded Fair Haven
cars up the Grand Avenue grade. That fii'st electric car, by the way, was a
storage battery affair. When it reached the Green, its power gave out, and
there it stuck until ignominiously moved away by horses. The experiment did
not encourage New Haveii to try the storage battery system, and when it went,
a year or two later, into the electric car business, it adopted the well known
trolley. New Haven well remembers its first electric line, which ran from the
Green out Church and down Elm, thence to State and out to James Street,
■where it abandoned the well known route for Laraberton and Ferry, going on
down to Chapel. That was in 1893. When, a little later, the line was continued
to Morris Cove and Lighthouse Point, New Haven opened its eyes in wonder,
and the rival lines took notice.

The electric light had come. New Haven by 1890 was well lighted, as cities
went. Arc lights made its streets, according to the standards of the time,
conveniently navigable even on a rainy night. Rut electric lights for interiors
■were still rare. Many of the public buildings, and particularly the churches.

LKiHTHOUSK POINT. Xi:\V HA\EX

VIEW i;)F MORRIS COVE, NEW HAVEX

AND EASTERN NEW HAVEN COUNTY 63

were gas lighted as late as 1905 and afterward. And when in 1912 the "White
Way" was agitated, making some of the central streets brilliantly lighted ac-
cording to modern standards, there were business men who shook their heads.
Five years later, the city took over the "White Way" as a matter of course,
and has since extended it to other streets as unquestionably worth its cost in
safety and business advantage.

Shore expansion had come. Up to 1895, New Haven had Savin Rock — which
belonged, and still belongs to West Haven. Not so long liefore that, it had meant
a ten-cent expenditure to take a ride to Savin Rock, less than five miles away.
But it was not a residence shoi-e resort. It was in the closing days of the century
that the real development of the East Shore began. There were a few pioneei's
there in those days, who thought they were hardy if they braved the mosquitoes
for three months in the summer, but professed to get enough advantage to make
up for them. Now Morris Cove is a ward of New Haven city, filled with cottages
all the way from the Palisades to Lighthouse Point, with many side streets well
developed, and a large part of the former cottagers living there all the year.

The We.st Shore now seems to be a part of New Haven, though most of it is
in Mil ford. In summer time, it is a part of the greater New Haven, and many
of the residents of the city have handsome shore places there. Some are tempted
to, and many do, live there all the year.

But it is more to the point that expansion has come to New Haven itself,
centrally. It was not long after 1890 that the name "Westville" began to mean
something besides far Whalley Avenue, and Martin Sti-eet was renamed "Edge-
wood Avenue." Edgewood Park was not, but the ride out Edgewood Avenue
into Westville, when the new trolley line was opened, was like travel into a newly
discovered country. In the somewhat over two decades since, Westville has
become the most important suburb belonging to New Haven. It has preserved its
own individuality in many respects, and has its distinct school and social life,
but it is a convincing proof of how New Haven has outgrown its former
boundaries.

Industrial expansion had come. The "important factories" which in 1890
could almost be counted on the fingei's of two hands, if one's memory were
good enough, had become over half a hundred ma.jor concerns, well known
abroad, if not in New Haven. It was frequently being remarked by the observ-
ant, indeed, that New Haven was not getting full credit for its impoi'tance as a
manufacturing center.

ilost important of all, New Haven had startlingly changed in population.
The 2.3,000 addition to its number between 1880 and 1890, and the almost equal
increase by 1900, were not additions of "native stock." The 40,000 foreign
born, and the 43,000 native born of foreign parentage, which were found in
1910, had been coming. In 1892 there were Italians enough in New Haven to
raise money for a fine statue of Columbus on Wooster Square, and shortly after
that it was estimated that a fifth of the jiopulation of New Haven was Italian.
At that time they constituted, however, only one in fifty or more nations and
tribes to he found distinctly represented in polyglot New Haven.

64 A MODERN HISTORY OF NEW HAVEN

Did the city adequately appreciate all these changes ? Apparently not. Some
of them had been too rapid for it. It knew it was growing and changing, but
it did not think it essential to catalogue its progress. Not all the people recog-
nized it as progress. Like all conservative cities. New Haven had some citizens
who regretted many features of the change. They were contented with the
old order. They were not especially enthusiastic over the new. The old elms
sulHeed them. For the new ideas they did not especially care. But the new
ideas were bound to come. The old elms, as we may later obsei've, were not
l)ound to remain.

The date of the renaissance is difficult to set. It began gradually, probably
about the time of the Yale Bicentennial. New Haven got some of its new vision
from that. Leaders in thought and vision followed up the advantage. Yale's
policy of participation helped. The Chamber of Commerce came out of its
century's dream, and that helped more than anything else. The Civic Federa-
tion, the Business Men 's Association, the Publicity Club, all joined in the effort.
New Haven had come into a new era. Now it came to consciousness of the fact.

What is this New Haven of contrast, the New Haven of today? It is a city
profitable for comparison with the crude center of the colony, or even with the
smug, unconscious New Haven of the latter eighteen hundreds. It is a city
which impresses the beholder who comes from without more than it does the
accustomed beholder who lives within. A distinguished engineer, a few years
ago, called New Haven, as a port, the key to New England. Here, at length,
is a center of New World commerce, a railroad center, a potential shipping
center, such as Theophilus Eaton, even with old London in his vision, never
conceived in the wildness of his dream. Here is the water gateway to the
busiest freight section of the East beyond New York. Here is the water outlet
for the intense New England manufacturing section, immensely important now,
having far greater possibilities for the future.

Much of this is in the future, no doubt. For the present here is a city esti-
mated to have 175,000 people, in the center of a district whose facilities easily
reach 200,000 more. Within a radius of a hundred miles are upward of ten
millions of the people of this country. It has more industries than any other
city of Connecticut or southern New England, and some of them, at this par-
ticular time, are of immense magnitude. It has a greater variety of products than
many cities several times its size. Railroads, centering here, radiate to New
York and Boston, and to all the important manufacturing and supply and trade
centers of New England. It has steamboat lines which supplement its railroad
facilities. It has a harbor that is the admiration and despair of many a city
of the South and West that does three times New Haven's business. To make
it, the city encircles a bay that runs in nearly four miles from Long Island
sound, and is almost a mile and a half in width. It has not anything like a
uniformly navigable channel, but much has been done to deepen it, and there

AND EASTERN NEW HAVEN COUNTY 65

is a field for much more effort. The chauuel uow existing is from 300 to 400
feet wide and more than twenty feet in depth, allowing vessels of large draught
to reach the docks. Improvements in both channel and dock facilities are being
constantly made.

New Haven of today is a clean city, with well paved and well kept streets,
with hundreds of miles of modern, uniform cement sidewalks. It did not
always boast of these things. Up to 1909, a policy of mistaken economy had
retarded street pavement until the city's needs had got ahead of it, and the
miles of uneven, unsafe, archaic brick sidewalks were far more conspicuous than
the comparatively short stretches of the modern type. But New Haven had a
permanent paving commission made up of men with good ideas, and about that
time the city adopted the policy of giving it a free hand. Discarding all the
wrecks and failures of the past, the commission decided on two, or at the most
three types of pavement as sufficient for the city's varying needs. For the
streets of heaviest traffic, wood block. For streets of moderate traffic, asphalt,
either laid on new foundation or laid over an old foundation of substantial
macadam. For other streets, tar-bound macadam as a general type.

The improvement in sidewalks is a monument to Frank J. Rice, mayor of
New Haven for seven years. When first inaugurated in 1910, he pledged him-
self to seek, among other things, better sidewalks. He tried to accomplish many
things, and did accomplish numerous notable ones, but one of the most conspicu-
ous, if not the most important was the more than 200 miles of the best type of
sidewalk which he caused to replace brick or broken asphalt in the city he loved,
and to whose service he gave up his life.

The city is comparatively clean because of a custom inaugurated in 1908 by
the Civic Federation, known as "Clean City Week." It usually coincided, at
first, with the Easter vacation in the schools, and the service of the pupils,
boys and girls, was enlisted in the effort to use their influence to the end of
clearing back yards, vacant lots and obscure streets of \insiglitly or unsanitary
refuse. In addition, the boys were enlisted as inspectors. They visited all back
yards so far as possible, all vacant lots and other repositories of rubbish, and
reported the condition of those whose owners had not responded to the public
appeal to clean up. At the end of the week another inspection was made, and
progress, if any, reported. Meanwhile, the city had done what it could. In
espceiall.y stubborn cases, the aid of an ordinance was invoked. In 1916 the cit.v
took over this work, and carried it on through the schools. Volunteer citizens
visited each school on the Friday before Cleanup week, pi-eaching the gospel of
consistent cleanliness, not neglecting to emphasize its high advantage. The
results have been evident and abiding.

Almost every moderate sized city is called by its enthusiasts a "city of
liomes. " New Haven has never very conspicuously made this claim. It has
been, in recent years, a city of much building, largely of residences, in addition
to many notable public and business edifices. The gap toward Westville, by
either way of approach, has been almost entirely filled up. Residences have
spread out almost to the city limits in the Yale Field direction. Two notable

Vol. I 5

66 A MODERN HISTORY OF NEW HAVEN

iuhtances of tliis etieet are often meutioued. Somewhere about 1900 the people
at the west end of the city iwere alarmed because Roger Sherman School was
placed so far beyond them, in the far edge of the residence district. Now the
residences have spread so far and so numerously beyond it that the city has
been compelled to make the Barnard School, w'hich stands for its part on "the
far boundaries of civilization, "' draw off some of the district's surplus school
population.

In 1899 the people of the College Street Church, on selling their building to
Yale University, were so daring as to select for their new building a site on far
West Chapel Street, at the corner of Sherman Avenue. In a sense, it was in
the western wilderness then. Now Plymouth Church, as the new edifice is
called, is on the eastern front of its field.

In other directions the population has spread out Dixwell Avenue far into
Hamden, and out Prospect Street into the same town. Striking the encircling
Ilamden in another direction, Wliitney Avenue is lined with comfortable homes
almost continuously from its junction with Temple Street to Mount Carmel.

It naturally follows that many, and prol)ably as good a proportion as in
most cities, of these new buildings are what might lie called homes. Certain
it is that the building and loan companies of New Haven are conservative,
prosperous and sound, which tells something of the story. The habit of owning
a two-family house in order to rent one part is very common, and judging by
the appeals of the real estate men, very popular. The records of the savings
banks, moreover, would indicate that whether the people are paying rent or buy-
ing houses, they are saving money.

New Haven observed utility rather than art in the building of its industrial
plants. Other cities long have sought to make beauty spots of their factory dis-
tricts; New Haven has not, as a rule, seen the use of it. It has followed the
creed that if it produced the goods, the looks of the factory did not matter.
Stern brick walls bound most of New Haven's factories and the rule is few lawns
and no great amount of adorning ivy. In a word, most of New Haven's factories
are outwardly old fashioned.

But they are not so within, judged by their products. Manufacturing New-
Haven is practically up to the times. It is a city versatile in its industries. Time
was when a single, or at most two or three lines of manufacture stood out as
distinctive of New Haven. In a measure that is true now, but not as it used
to he. New Haven is not a brass town, not a silver town, not a hardware town —
no longer a firearms town. Yet it makes, in measure large or small, most of the
lines of goods which give Connecticut cities their distinctive names. A list of
the things that New Haven makes would surprise many citizens, but it would
not long be remembered by many of them.

Let it suffice to know that New Haven makes toys as well as high class
plumbers' house fittings, a large factory having recently been equipped for the
manufacture of the former. New Haven makes a great many guns and explosive
shells at any time — a tremendously increased number in this time of war. Biit
New Haven also makes large numbers of modern pianos, and just outside the

HOTEL TAFT, NEW HAVEN

AND EASTERN NEW HAVEN COUNTY 67

city, counted as a New Haven industry, is one of the famous pipe organ factories
of America. New Haven corsets are advertised wlierever women wear stays;
it is not as widely known that New Haven malies a hirge line of electric elevators.
Clocks and watches are among the historic manufactures of New Haven; the
city has a bird cage factory that is almost as famous iu its way. New Haven,
of course, because of the inventions here of Goodyear, was one of the original
rubber towns. Its extensive manufacture of automobile radiators is more recent.

The list would be tiresome, but justice to the subject requires a glimpse of
it. In addition to the things mentioned, there are made in New Haven folding
paper boxes, cigars, candy, geometric tools, dies, sewing machine attachments,
fishing reels, pliers, drop forgings of all sorts, wire in every variety, printers'
machinery, hosiery and underwear, aeroplanes and airships, .spectacular fireworks
of all sorts, concrete building stone, hack saws, saddlery .specialties, carriage and
automobile bodies, suspender welibing, safes, silk and silk skeins. Factories for
the making of these and a hundred other lines of goods fill aud overflow New
Haven in half a dozen dift'erent directions. There are over 800 manufacturing
estalilishments, with a capital of $12,000,000 invested in them. The endless
variety stabilizes the manufacturing business in New Haven, since a dullness in
one or even three or four trades has little eft'ect on the varied whole. New
Haven is very far from being a one-industry town.

New Haven has not followed the ideals of John Davenport religiously, but
it has followed them intelligently. It has remained through all the years what
it was at the first, a center of Congregationalism. Its fourteen churches of that
order now include four distinct races of people not even conceived of by those
who founded the sect. The gi-ound which Congi-egationalism has held in New
Haven has not been without a struggle, for the city, as we may observe, has
grown cosmopolitan. Not only are more than fifty tongues and dialects, repre-
senting almost every country of the world, found in New Haven, but they
have brought their religions. And none of the important sects which have
sprung up in America in the years since New Haven's foundations were laid is
without its church or churches here, unless we except that Unitarian Church
which has been Boston's rebellion against the strictness of the older ordei-.

The early churches clustered on the Green, which was well enougli while
the city was small, and the people willing to follow the New England cu.stom
of "coming to the center" to church. Those built somewhat later went only
a little farther from the heart of the city. So it came about that in 1880 there
were, on the Green or within two or three city blocks of it, five Congregational
churches, the First Methodist Church, the leading Baptist Church of the city,
the largest Catholic Church, three leading Episcopal churches, a Presbytei-ian
Church and two Jewish synagogues. Ten churches centrally serving a population
at that time about 63,000, was not" a large number, to be sure, hut it meant
competition, not co-operation. For the population of New Haven had by that
time begun to spread to distances which demanded churches in their own local-
ities. A good part of it was in Fair Haven, and it had its own churches. "West-
ville was a substantial community, with its ow-n churches almost from the be-

68 A MODERN HISTORY OF NEW HAVEN

giimiug. Other outlying sections were well served by churches of the various
denominations.

And now the church forces of New Haven began to contend with another
change to which they were somewhat slow to adjust themselves. As we have
seen, a large part of the additions to New Haven's population since 1880 were
from other races than those which formed the support of the original churches.
The effect of this was most noticeable in the Wooster Square section, which had
once been the city's most fashionable residence district. On the hai-bor side of
this section the Italians especially had begun to come, and as they grew numerous
and strong, they i:)ressed towards the square. They did not force out the old
residents, exactly, for they had begun to move, but they pressed on tliem. New
Haveners of the old line had not learned, then, what excellent substance for good
citizenship then- was in these new comers. To them all foreigners looked alike,
except that Italians were especially obnoxious. They moved. They left, in the
moving, church buildings which not long before had held large congregations
and active working forces. Instead of standing their ground, as some have done
to "the glory of God and the blessing of man," these churches ''scuttled "' so
to speak. Their congi'egations sold their buildings, and built elsewhere.

This was true not alone of the Wooster Square section. This is only typical.
But what is more important, it turned the current of church movement along the
lines of least resistance, so to speak, all over the city. The churches no longer
sounded imperative bells to call the people to worship. (There are comparatively
few church bells in New Haven today, in fact.) Long since had the roll of the
drum from the tower of the Meeting House on the Green lost its commanding
power. The churches felt forced to follow the commanding move of the people,
which was well, in a way.

It has worked out fairly well for New Haven. It has helped in the breaking
of the city into communities, which was inevitable, no doubt. The churches have,
however, taken two courses. Center and Trinity and United have stood their
gi'oiind on the Green. In the case of Center, this was the only course. It was
the original church. It represented, still represents, the identification of the
church with the community which John Davenport established. Center Church
has not become less a denominational institution. It represents, nobly, cour-
ageously, the principles of Congregationalism. But it performs in many ways a
comnnmity service which gives it unchallenged leadership. In the very heart
of New Haven its heavenward-pointing spii'e, its noble example of the interna-
tional best type of free church architecture, stand to visualize the ideals of the
church of God in the New World. In the heart of New Haven's people it stands,
for many ages and man,y races and many generations have found within its
walls the spirit of brotherhood, the ideals of a social service above any church
or race or creed, which their souls have craved. Ably led, the mission which
Center Church performs is for the saving of the people who have followed the
paths John Davenport's pilgrims trod.

In other ways not less noble and inspiring, some of the other churches have
stood their ground. The notable example, in the Wooster Square district, is

AND EASTEKN NEW HAVEN COUNTY 69

Saint Paul's Episcopal. This fine old church, placed in that part of the city to
serve those of its faith among the old families of New Haven whose homes
were around Wooster Square, faced the parting of the ways about 1900. Its
people had in large part removed to other parts of the city, some of them remote.
Those of other lands, other races and other languages and religious faiths
had crowded around it. It must decide between the course which at least
two other churches in the vicinity had taken, of selling its building and starting
anew in some other part of the city, or of remaining in its place and becoming
what has since come to be called institutional. This meant, in more ideal terms,
that if it stood its ground, it would serve the people as it found them, in their
midst, and in other ways than merely by its formal services on Sunday. It meant
that it would, all in tlie spirit of its Master and Lord, serve mankind in many
ways not included in the original New England conception.

Saint Paul's chose the latter course. It stood its ground. It kept nn in
the even tenor of its fine old Church of England ritual, so far as concerned its
formal services. It was served, then and since, by some distinguished leaders,
and more than once seekers of bishops have turned their eyes in its direction.
Rut its people were loyal. Some of the most faithful of its supporters and
workers caught the inspiration of the new opportunity. Saint Paul's remained,
and served the people.

Not only were the excellent facilities of the church's parish liouse devoted
to the social center needs of the people of the district, but their attention was
attracted in a conspicuous way by the opening of a neighborliood house around
the corner, in the heart of the foreign section on AVooster Street. There were
amusement and instructional opportunities which appealed to the residents of
the neighborhood. There they had a place to gather, to read, to play games, to
indidge in athletic sports. Boys' clubs and girls' clubs, men's and women's
organizations, were formed for them. To them religion was made a natural, an
appealing thing of life. And the people of Saint Paul 's led the way in minister-
ing to their needs of guidance and instruction. Here in this neighborhood house,
to make the service intensely practical, was opened one of the city's milk supply
stations, where in the summer the poorest might get pure milk for the saving
of the babies, and have friendly advice and help for the proper feeding of their
children and the conduct of their households.

In a somewhat different way, Davenport Cliurch at the coi-ner of Wooster
Square took up the same work. Its people abandoned it, in a sense, in 1909,
but they went to Center Church. That clmrch took the Davenport building and
carried on there a work that would have greatly surprised and enlightened him
from whom the clmrch was named. It was settlement work, witli the definite
churcli organization as a center. With an Italian pastor at first — New Haven
still re.ioices in the work which tlie Rev. Francesco Pesaturo did there — later
with a pastor specially trained for work of this sort. Center Church has main-
tained here a home, partly religious, partlj^ non-sectarian, for the Italians of the
city. Those of non-Catholic and Congregational beliefs join the church, and
their children attend the Sunday school. Others, particularly the boys and

70 A MODERN HISTORY OF NEW HAVEN

youug meu of the ueighborhood, are affiliated through non-sectariau boys' club
or Boy Scout or other social center work, lu this department of the service of
Davenport settlement Allen B. Lincoln of Center Church was for years a leader
of power and influence, and never will New Haven cease to benefit from the
seeds of good citizenship, of sturdy manhood, of true brotherhood, of under-
standing of the best that is in America, which he sowed in the good soil of the
well disposed youthful minds which came under his influence.

Otiier fhurehes have joined in a similar way in the needed work of teaching
American ideals to the multitude from other lands who make up so great a part
of the population of modern New Haven, notably the Church of the Redeemer
in its Welcome Hall work on Oak Street. This church, by the way, has also
yielded to the change caused by New Haven 's expansion, and is about to establish
itself in a new home at the corner of Whitney Avenue and Cold Spring Street.
Its fine old edifice at Orange and Wall streets, where the Rev. Jonathan Todd and
the R^'V. Watson L. Phillips and others made it a power, has been disposed of to
another church which was forced to yield to the changing character of the city.
Trinity Gei-man Lutheran Evangelical Church, formerly at the lower end of
George Street.

Sn the expanded New Haven has today churches which conveniently serve
all its residence districts, while its center is still well supplied. It has eighty-
two churches in the city proper, with a dozen more which are so closely affiliated
with New Haven's interests in general as to properly belong to the city. The
single denomination of 1640 has grown to twelve. The Roman Catholic denomi-
nation has seventeen churches, doing consecrated service in religion and edu-
cation. The Jewish church has its six synagogues, maintaining not only the
worship of its faith and order, but serving the whole community in many useful
ways.

New Haven has not depended on Yale University for its reputation as an
educational center. Independent of Yale, there has been made here a notable
record among the towns of the state and of New England. New Haven not only
has a good system of education ; it has a difl'erent one whose difference consists
in the fact that it is better. It makes no empty boast of this ; it makes no boast
at all. for it has, as will be later shown, the substance in evidence. Aside from
Yale University, whose nine departments serve every higher educational need,
New Haven has one of the best of the state's training schools for teachers.
In the substantial building at the corner of Howe and Oak streets Arthur B.
Morrill and a corps of teachers with splendid ideals of the profession to which
they have devoted their lives, perhaps the most vitally important of the profes-
sions, are annually sending out to the schools of New Haven and of Connecticut
a hundred young women whose work is to be for the saving of the state.

New Haven has a high school remarkable in its history, more remarkable in
its recent development. Long ago it outgrew the Hillhouse building on Orange
Street, and went to its new edifice on York Square — the only private park in
New Haven. The rapid development of the city's school requirements made it
a question, for several years, whether a single central institution, with its uni-

AND EASTERN NEW HAVEN COUNTY 71

forinity of result, would not need to be saeriticcd to a demand for more room.
There was a struggle between those who wanted to keep the high school one
and those who would divide in districts. The outcome was not a victory, exactly,
for either side, but a compromise by which the central plant is enabled to serve
not only the city but a good deal of the suburbs. Here — not to quote figures
which constantly change from year to year — is an institution containing more
students than the average of American colleges, equipped at present, considering
all its departments, as well as any high school in Connecticut and surpassed by
few in New England. For it is four schools in one. In the high school building
proper the usual work of a high school is carried on. In the Boardman Manual
Training School bixilding are the manual and scientific portions of the high
school and the whole organization of the apprentice shops (the trade school,
itself an institution in respect to which New Haven leads the country). Re-
cently, an added building has been erected to house the commercial school, which
makes the fourth distinct department of the New Haven secondary education
system.

In fifteen wards. New Haven has fifty-two graded schools, where a force of
between 600 and 700 teachers instruct the nearly 30,000 children of the city —
children, seemingly of every race and origin e.xistent. Yet so excellent is the
system that from the "melting pot" is turned out annually, by way of grammar
or high or normal or trade or night school, much of the pure gold of satisfactorily
trained and understanding citizenship.

It is needful here, in tracing the causes which shape the New Haven that is,
to mention only a few of the moral forces of the city aside from its religious and
educational systems. Not even a sketch of the development of modern New
Haven can omit the associations for the Christian culture, on broad and non-
sectarian grounds, of the city's young men and young women. The Young
Men's Christian Association, with more than half a century behind it, has had,
as have most associations dating as far back as that, its struggles for existence.
When it ambitiously assumed responsibility for a modern association building
about 1900, it took a burden which staggered it. It suffered from the mistakes
of management that are inevitable to such an experience. It was not until 1914
or thereabout that the association came into its own, and was able to give its
full attention to the saving of New Haven, without having to worry about what
it should eat and wear and burn. Standing today firm in the confidence and
support of the substantial people of New Haven, it is performing, as justification
for their support, a work of formation of character whose value cannot be
described.

A similar experience of struggle has been the lot of the sister organization,
the Young Women's Christian Association. The demands of its work, as the
city grew, constantly went ahead of its resources. It has long needed an ade-
quate building — which it will get some day. Meanwhile, with the facilities it
has, it is doing an indispensable work for the young women of New Haven,
especially those who need, for a longer or shorter time, what may stand in the
place of home life and influence.

72 A MODERN HISTORY OF NEW HAVEN

New Haven has iu its modern time many organizations, ambitious to attain
many ends. Churches and educational forces maintain societies to the end of
the improvement of the religious, the moral or the social life of the city. Not
infrequently they have been found duplicating each other's work, getting in
each other's way. It was the thought that something might be done toward
harnessing and harmonizing all this effort, that was a part of the idea in forming
the Civic Federation. Elsewhere the history of this institution and the names
of the persons who made it will be told. Let it be mentioned here as a force
in the peculiar formation of the modern community we are considering.

There was so much to be done in New Haven when the awakening came.
There were evils to be contended with — moral, social, physical. There was need
to build up a harmonious civic spirit. The town was disjointed, spread in
cliques. There was need for a ennnnon force to hold together its workers of
good will, in which neither race nor sect nor creed should separate them. They
should be united in a common task. The Federation would find the ta.sk, it
would gather the workers, it would set them at work. It would act as a clearing
house, as it were, of the organizations already at work. It would assume the role
of guide, counsellor and friend of them all.

Something of all this has been accomplished. But the federation never
found a rope quite long enough to hitch its wagon to that star. It was able,
nevertheless, to do a lot of good, to exert a positive and lasting influence on the
whole community in some of the directions it sought. It has found tasks enough ;
it has found many workers. It has done not a little in getting them together.
But, to repeat a common excuse, "New Haven is peculiar." It was a good
while set in its ways. The fedei-ation did not find all of the organizations, espe-
cially some of the old ones, ready to follow. It found, for instance, that the
Chamber of Commerce assumed much credit for its age and standing, little ac-
complishment as it was able to show for its years. And it may live to confess
that what stirred it up and set it out on a new career that accomplished something
for the city, was the activity of the Civic Federation, It is worth mentioning here
that, finding that in many departments of activity they were following the
same paths, the committees of the chamber and of the federation joined hands,
and met in joint session.

The result to New Haven was substantial, though not always tangible. It
was, in general, an awakening. In more directions than in the chamber old and
dormant forces were set to work. The city government itself saw where it could
improve. The charter which New Haven put into operation in 1900 was a distinct
advance, and some sixteen years later another attempt was made to secure, this
time, a truly modern charter by the standards of today. That attempt has not
yet arrived at success, but it is on its way, and it knows whither it is going.

So in many forms the result has come. New Haven has better government,
better streets, more regular building lines, better forms of central architecture,
better theaters and cleaner forms of amusement, with some of the objectionable
features of the old eliminated ; it has better living conditions, it has fewer flies
and mosquitoes, it has fewer temptations to young men and young girls, it has

AND EASTERN NEW HAVEN COUNTY 73

greater safeguards arouud its juveuile and other delinqiieuts, it has a better jail,
it has better conditions in a hundred ways, because of the Civic Federation.

To mention at present but one other modern moving force in New Haven,
the Chamber of Commerce's day has been in this awakening time. Founded in
1794, it slumbered longer than did Rip Van Winkle, but its awakening- was
more to the purpose. Perhaps it is just as well not to assign a date, but it
was about 1906. It went after the people first. From a membership of 200
or thereabout it went to 800 in 1909, and to 1,200 five years later. It is still
moving on. The Business Men's Association had then been founded for some
time, to perform the well known and stereotyped functions of such organizations
elsewhere. The Publicity Club was founded in 1910, with the avowed intention
to "boost New Haven." It did its work so well that the chamber a few years
later saw the virtue of a triple entente, and the three organizations w-ere merged
in one, each, however, retaining in large measure its distinct membership. The
chamber has had some notable banquets since its awakening, and at least two of
the Presidents of the United States have at different times addressed gatherings
of more than 1,000 of the leading men of the city in the great dining room of
Woolsey Hall, but it has done a lot "between meals." It has boomed New
Haven in everj- legitimate way, largely by quietly but insistently emphasizing the
good points existing here, largely omitting those merely hoped for. It has been
discovering the good points of New Haven, and advertising them. It has missed
no opportunity of "putting the best foot forward" of the town, diplomatically
and courteously serving as host to all bodies of visitors, financing, through com-
mittees of its members, many conventions which would bring large asserablages
here, enabling New Haven in every way to make the best of itself.

Such are a few of the high lights of the New Haven that is, as the twentieth
century grows toward the close of its second decade. It is not the complete
New Haven. There are many details in the picture, some of which are to be
filled in later. New Haven is not ideal ; it longs to be. It has men of vision,
with ambitions for it. Some of them achieved, in the first decade of the century,
what is too important as prophecy, even though yet unfulfilled, to be omitted
from a modern history of the community. What that is it will be the attempt
of the following chapter to tell. It is a story of the "City Beautiful." the
New Haven that would be if it were to be made over from the viewpoint of this
century.

CHAPTER X
THE IDEAL NEW HAVEN

A REVIEW OF THE RESPECTS IN WHICH THE REPORT OP THE CIVIC IMPROVEMENT
COMMITTEE SUGGESTED THE RECONSTRUCTION OF THE CITY

George Dudley Seymour has beeu known as the father of the '"City Beauti-
ful" as applied to New Haven. It will appear that he deserves a somewhat
more exact definition of the work he has done in pointing the way for New
Haven toward the ideal in niunieipal development. He was not the first, per-
haps, of New Haveners who wandered in the beautiful paths of the Old World,
to desire that his own city might be developed somewhat in proportion to its
possibilities as those cities have beeu. lie was not the first, it may be, of the New
Haven observers of what American cities much younger than this have achieved
in the direction of municipal beauty, to wish that this pioneer city of America
might be developed in harmony with its traditions and historical importance.

But be was the first, it seems, to match his hopes and faith with works. No
one knew better than he how hard it was to "start New Haven." But never-
theless, he boldly attacked the task. It was in 1907 that Jlr. Seymour embodied,
in a series of thoughtful and most carefully elaborated articles in one of the
New Haven newspapers, somewhat in detail, with some illustrative views of the
city as it was, his "City Beautiful" plan. The phrase caught, but the people
did not take it very seriously. It would cost money to change New Haven over
in that way. Just then, let it be explained. New Haven was drawing near the
close of a disastrous — as it proved — period of attempt to see how low the tax
rate could be kept, to the utter disregard of things that needed to be done in
the city. Schools and streets and especially New Haven's wonderfully potential
but undeveloped park system, had suffered. But the people had conceived the
notion that it was a great thing to refrain from spending money. They politely
laughed at Mr. Seymour's expensive tastes in making over a city. "City
Beautiful," repeated by those who but partly sensed what it meant, caught up
l)y others who knew nothing at all about it, became something very like a joke.
]\Ir. Seymour took it good naturedly, but be did not in the least lose his
grip on the thought. He had accomplished, for the time being, what he desired.
He had got the people to talking about a better New Haven. At least it had
dawned upon some of them that somebody thought the city could be improved.
He published, in the New Haven newspapers of June 5, 1907, an "open letter,"

AND EASTERN NEW HAVEN COUNTY 75

proposing certain very defiDite thiugs, the first of which was a mass meeting of
the citizens to consider proceeding ou a citj- improvement plan. As a result
of that letter, or at least following its publication, Mayor John P. Studley called
a mass meeting in Colonial Hall on the evening of June 19. It was largely
attended, and the discussion showed encouraging interest in the subject dis-
cussed in the letter. This resolution, offered by Henry C. White, attorney, and
seconded by Burton Mansfield, attorney, was approved by several prominent
citizens in appreciative speeches, and then passed unanimously :

"Voted: — That a committee be appointed by the Mayor, of which he shall be
a member ex officio, to include one member of the Board of Aldermen, one
member of the Board of Park Commissioners, and nine other citizens, to employ
experts to prepare a plan for the improvement of the city of New Haven, if after
con.sideration they deem this course advisable ; to procure, by appropriation or
otherwise, the money necessary to pay the charges and expenses of such experts,
if employed; and to bring any plan which may be made to the attention of the
government and people of the city, with the committee's recommendations in
regard to such plan ; said committee to have power to add to and fill vacancies in
its membership."

Within a few days, pursuant to this resolution, Mayor Studley appointed
this "New Haven Civic Improvement Committee" of twelve members:

Hon. Rollin S. Woodruff, Hon. John P. Studley, George Dudley Seymour,
George D. Watrous, William W. Farnam, Frederick D. Grave, Max Adler,
James T. Moran, Frederick F. Brewster, Harry G. Day, Rev. Anson Phelps
Stokes, Jr., Harry H. Townshend.

Meanwhile, as a further part of the work of preparing the mind of New-
Haven for the plan, this course of lectures was given, open to the public without
charge, in the Trumbull gallery of the Yale Art School. It had been suggested
and was partly arranged by Prof. John F. Weir :

December 3, 1908, Mr. Frank ^liles Day, president of the American Institute
of Architects, "Civic Improvement in the United States;" December 10, 1908,
Mr. Cass Gilbert, A. I. A., S. A. R., "Grouping of Public Buildings;" December
17, 1908, Mr. John M. Carriere, A. I. A. (of Carriere & Hastings), "Civic Im-
provement as to Parks, Streets and Buildings;" January 21, 1909, Mr. Walter
Cook, trustee of the American Institute of Architects, "Some Considerations in
Civic Improvement;" January 28, 1909, Mr. Frederick Law^ Olmsted, Jr., A.
S. L. A.. "Parks and Civic Improvements;" February 4, 1909, Mr. Charles
Howard Walker. A. I. A., "Embellishment of Cities."

The discriminating and the true seekers after progress improved this
opportunity, and had their reward, but they were not discomforted by much
crowding. Meanwhile, the work had been financed, according to the terms of
the resolution, by ninety-five citizens, and New Haven waited for the appearance
of the report.

It came on September 26. 1910, in the shape of a handsome, finely printed,
attractively illustrated octavo volume of 136 pages. And all of its press matter
was good meat. One wonders how many of the people of New Haven have ever

76 A MODERN HISTORY OF NEW HAVEN

read it, how many of them do not even yet know of its existence. Yet it is the
law and the gospel of the "City Beautiful," the code of rules on which, as fast
as New Haven advances in real civic improvement, it must proceed. As such,
the report itself is legitimate history. An attempt will be made to condense
here the essence of the recommendations of the report.

As a basis for the reconniiendations there was a statement of the present con-
ditions and tendencies. By a diagram it was shown that not only has New
Haven been growing at a steadily increasing rate, but that many of those now
living will see the completion of the process by which it is being transformed
from the pleasant little New England college town of the middle nineteenth
centurj', with a population of relatively independent, individualistic and self-
sufficing householders, into the widespread urban metropolis of the twentieth
century, the citizens of which will be wholly dependent upon joint action for a
very large proportion of the good things of civic life.

The accompanying diagram showed the population growth of New Haven
from 1850 to 1910, with parallel growth-curves of certain larger cities. The
climax of the showing was that if New Haven follows the experience of the
other cities similarly situated, it will have a population of some 400,000 in the
year 1950. And the end of the twentieth century, we were somewhat sensation-
ally told, might see a population of a million and a half centering in the New
Haven Green. It w-as desirable, therefore, to remodel, to build, to plan with
that possibility in view.

There was a second diagram, less theoretical, charting the composition of
New Haven's population in 1910. It showed that the city had obtained about
one-third of its increase in population through immigration. That the Irish,
though still predominating among the foreign born of 1900, were actually de-
creasing in numbers, while the more recent immigrants from southern and east-
ern Europe bade fair soon to overtake the older sources of foreign population
and probably to increase materially the total percentage of foreign born in the
city. Moreover, the birth rate of the Italians and Russians was strikingly
higher than that of the earlier immigrants, that of all the immigrants was higher
than that of the native born, and that of the native born of foreign parents
was greater than the rate of births among native parents. Therefore it was
clearly evident that the percentage of old New England stock in the population
was progi-essively diminishing. People of the old New England stock still to
a large extent controlled the city, and if they wanted New Haven to be a fit and
worthy place for their descendants, it behooved them to establish conditions
about the lives of all the people that would make the best fellow citizens of them
and of their children.

New Haven was summarized as a town of many industries, a local distrib-
uting center, a local coastwise shipping port, an educational center of national
importance. Its conditions were such that "people here can work hard and

AND EASTERN NEW HAVEN COUNTY 77

enjoy life.'" The iufereuce was that New Haveu could afford to do what was
reeomiuended.

lu the lifetime of the present generation, the city has changed from a New
England country town, in which one could in a short walk, and under com-
fortable elms, cover the space from center to suburb. It is now a widely spread
city, said the report, becoming centrally congested, yet so spread as to furnish
the street railway company with 31,599,4:53 fares a year. Yet not only have
the old streets been left unwidened, but new ones show no plan to match
changed and prospective conditions. For the people themselves, especially the
young, there had been provided no recreation facilities.

These were but hints of what the distinguished planners (the names signed to
the report were Cass Gilbert and Frederick Law Olmsted) were going to
propose. As to New Haven's financial ability to adopt their conclusions, they
said further:

'"So far as appears on the face of the figures, there seems to be no reason
why New Haven shoud hesitate, on the score of financial difficulties, to undertake
a liold and farsighted policy in needful public improvements, provided the work
is done without extravagance, waste or corruption."

The report then proceeded with mention of the kinds of improvement most
needed. It is worth knowing that the first of these was, in the opinion of the
distinguished experts, a new railroad station. The railroad should have a better
s.ystem of freight yards, on filled land seaward, to give New Haven more room.
It should provide more sidings for the factoi'ies. On the marshes to the east
of the Quinnipiac seemed the best place for those.

New Haven Harbor, instead of occupying a minor position, should be
brought up more nearly to its possibilities. New Haven should control more
of its shore properties (a suggestion then and since woefully disregarded). New
Haven should have wider main thoroughfares, because of the increasing traffic
on them. This was something to which to look forward and plan. But two
things were to be looked after at once: The widening of Chapel Street; the
building of a proper approach to the station.

The fact that two principal arteries of street ear traffic cross each other at
grade, making serious hazard and delay, suggests the need of a subway some-
where from the northern approach on Whitney Avenue near Grove Street,
passing under the center of the city and emerging south of George Street.

There was an extended discussion of street and building lines, with many
general suggestions. The proper width of sidewalks to roadways was defined.
The required width of streets when trees are to be preserved was set. The
standard width in various European cities was given. The city was advised
to conserve its trees, bury its wires and suppress its advertising signs. There
was some very impressive figuring as to the cash value of well nourished shade
trees.

As to sewage disposal, while the report did not go deeply into the matter,
some practical suggestions were made, one of which was that New Haven have
one channel for its large but harmless flow of surface water, which might be

78 A MODERN HISTORY OF NEW HAVEN

open, and other covered channels for its sewage. For the rest, the report sug-
gested that the city study hard on a problem that is peculiarly its own.

New Haven thought it had a fine system of parks in 1910, though it admitted
a shortage of developed playgrounds. With the kindnes.s of a wounding friend,
Messrs. Gilbert and Olmsted proceeded to treat these parks as if they were only
crude beginnings. Great stress was laid on the fact that parks and playgrounds,
to be good foi anything, must be brought to the people; the people who need
them most will never go to them, at least not far. "Within easy walking distance
of every home in the city," is the rule. This refers to what the report called
"local parks." The fine mountain and landscape gardened parks are for driving
and long-distance pedestrians and show. The' local parks are for the people.
New Haven needed more of them, and of playgrounds. Chicago's plan of a
park within a half mile of every house was mentioned. A map of New Haven
showing great black areas unenlightened by parks in the far western, eastern
and southwestern sections, wa.s shown. There were unkind remarks about the
ridiculous microscopic "playgrounds'" of our schools.

The report then proceeded to toll what might be done about it. something like
this. First, to decide upon the general locality within which the local park
is needed, to examine carefully the assessed valuations of property within the
locality, and to select (tentatively) one or more sites which seem promising as
to location and cheapness. Then, second, to obtain options on such of the land
as it seems possible to obtain reasonably. Third, to ask publicly for the tender
of lands for park purposes in the locality, and to hold public hearings thereon.
And finally, guided by the information secured, to take steps for the securing
of the land needed by condemnation proceedings.

Something is said about the desirability, in sections where buildings must
be crowded, of crowding them to some purpose ; that is, of so grouping them
as to give a common court, and it is suggested that this might be a plan for
.some unbuilt portions of the city. In closing this part of the subject, there is
this touching reference to the "jjlaygrounds" of some of New Haven's schools:

"Provision for this in New Haven up to the present time has apparently,
been almost wholly ignored, as indicated by the table on the next page, which
shows that the children, instead of having a provision of thirty or forty S(|nare
feet of space in which to play, are in some cases crow'ded beyond all reason,
merely dumped out and herded between classes or scattered after school."

The city was complimented for its wisdom in having secured so much land in
East and We.st Rock parks, Edgewood and Beaver Pond pai'ks, but was respect-
fully reminded that it ought to get more without delay. It was hinted in this con-
nection that the New Haven Water Company is more acquisitive and exclusive
in its monopoly of land and scenery than the adequate protection of the water-
sheds demands. The authors were keen on the need of the public for parks.
It appears that they did not know- the New Haven Water Company, the demands
on its system and the success it has had in providing a satisfactory water sup-
ply, as well as do some of their fellow citizens.

So the report did, in its specific suggestions, advocate not only the getting

AND EASTERN NEW HAVEN COUNTY 79

hold, iu some way, of Lake Saltoustall watershed, Lake AVhituey shores and
reservation, Lake Wiiitergreeu watershed aud Maltby Ridge Parkway, but of
Allingtown Ridge and Allingtown Hill, Greist's Pond and Cherry Hill, Monto-
wese aud Eoxou parkways and Peter 's Rock Reservation. These are iu the outer
circle of park additions.

There was in the main praise for the system of imier parks which we now
have, aud suggestions of the sort which the park commissiouers have been car-
rying out as fast as they could get the money. There were recommendations
for further acquisitions, such as Springside Valley, Pine Rock, Highwood, Win-
chester lakes and Winchester Parkway, and the advice, already adopted, to
get the Mill River marshes. It was suggested that considerably more area be
.secured in the vicinity of the Quinnipiac basin, in the direction of East Haven
and Branford, at Morris Cove and at Savin Rock, in cheerful disregard of the
fact that many of these suggestions — and in fact others all the way back — refer
to lands entirely out of the New Haven jurisdiction.

Some of the specific suggestions for improvement "'in the heart of the city"
must suffice for completing this digest of a highly important report. A beginning
is made at the Green. "The churches should be restored to their original appear-
ance." (Center has already taken the hint.) There should be a public comfort
station; an elTort has been made to secure this, but in vain. The band stand
should be rebuilt; we gather that the present one isn't dignified. There is a
suggestion out of which has been evolved the present "mall" at the lower end
of the Green. There should be some control of the height of the jDublic build-
ings around the Green.

Some .space was given to plans for a plaza at the new railroad station, and
to the elaboration of the approach to it. Then there was talk of a widened
Commerce Street, of a new armory, of a Temple Street subway, of a "bee line"
avenue from the station to College and Temple. A wave of economy has since
swept away most of these thoughts.

The remainder of the principal .suggestions may be thus summarized :

Widen Orange Street from Crown to George, passing it tlirough the Second
Regiment Armory.

Extend Union Street at each end.

Widen and extend Kimberly Avenue, with considerable reference to West
Haven.

Raise and widen Edgewood Avenue and extend it through Westville. (This
has in part already been done.)

Widen Water Street to at least double its present proportions.

Eliminate the Belle Dock grade crossing and widen or replace with a new one
Tomlinson bridge.

CHAPTER XI
NEW HAVEN GREEN

ITS ORIGIN, OWNERSHIP AND PRESERVATION INTACT — ITS HISTORY AND ITS DEVELOP-
MENT — ITS RELIGIOUS, EDUCATIONAL, CIVIC AND OTHER USES

Probably all parts of the woods looked alike to that group of settlers who
landed from the boats of the Hector on the banks of the West creek. If they
could have looked forward a few years, or even a few months, they would have
gone through the forest for a half mile or so to the northeast of where they came
ashore, to find a spot for their first Sunday worsliip. In short, they would have
located the center of what was afterward to l)e the Green, and holding their
first public worship there, have made the succession unbroken. But it was
getti)ij, late on Saturday when they got their goods ashore, and the shadows
of the Sabbath were upon them. So they were fain to gather around their pastor
and teacher the next day, as it turned out, under a fine old oak that was not
far from the bank of the creek. It may be that they worshipped there on
several Sundays of the summer that was just opening. They had no better
place for some time.

It may not have been so many months after that first worship that the Green
was laid out. Henry T. Blake confidently says that it was in June or July of
the same year that John Brockett laid out the city. We have already seen
how he surveyed his nine equal squares, and made the Market Place their center.
That, of course, was a mere survey, for all the tract was untouched wilderness,
but work was begun in clearing and building at once. As one of the first needs
was a place of worship, and as it had been decided that this was to be on the
Market Place, we may assume that its lines were early defined on something more
than paper.

The Green as we know it now is an almost exactly square plot sixteen and
five-hundredths acres in area, about 840 feet to a side, and little more than
two-thirds of a mile around. It may be that John Brockett 's survey was wholly
accurate, but it was easy, in the 132 years before the Green was actuall.v fenced
in. for the lines to become displaced. At an^- rate, we know by measurement
that the College Street side is twenty feet shorter than the Chapel Street, and ten
feet shorter than the Elm Street.

AND EASTERN NEW HAVEN COUNTY 81

It is hard in our time to get the point of view of the Davenport colonists in
laying out this square, and reserving it to the purposes they did. They called
it the Market Place, and we know so little of their meaning that this does not
convey an adequate idea. It was not to he a park, for the modern conception
of a park had not dawned. It was not to be a "common" after the manner of
Boston's, though they had lately come from there. Probably the clearest idea
of what they had in mind is given in the quotation which Mr. Blake makes in
his "'Chronicles" from Rev. Dr. P'rancis Bacon's civic oration on May 30, 1879:

"A place for public buildings, for military parades and exercises, for the
meeting of buyers and sellers, for the concourse of the people, for all such public
uses as were served of old by the Forum at Rome and the 'Agora' (called in our
English Bible 'the market') at Athens, and in more recent times by the great
square of St. Mark in Venice: or liy the 'market place' in many a city of those
low countries, with which some of our foiuiders had been familiar ])efore their
coming to this New World."

All these ideals and more the "Market Place," the Green, tlie public square,
the common, if you will, has served in its three hundred years. And more, for
these founders of New Haven were of a very independent sort, who proposed
to found a church-state-university — undreamed of trinity — such as the Old
World had not known and the New World had not conceived. A study of the
ends which the Green has served, more particulai-ly in its first two centuries,
but hardly less in recent times, will convince that one could hardly find in all
this land sixteen acres condensing moi"e of unfolding life and tradition and
history and destiny than here is held.

Here, as Mr. Blake eloquently says, "six generations educated their children
and buried their dead." Here, as the heart and soul of the community that
was to be, the first edifice for the worshiji of God was builcled, and here it was
to remain through the centuries for the worship of God and the service of man.
Here was to be the political and civic forum of the people, and here it has been
until now. Here was to be the New World field of Mars, and here have, as a
matter of fact, from the seventeenth centurj' to the twentieth, gathered the
soldiers of this community for their training, for their reviews, for their start
for tlie duty of "making the world safe for democracy." Here was to be the
education campus, and here in very truth it has remained, though the
great university has established its own hard by. Here was to be the site of
temples of justice and of legislation, and for two centuries and a half the Green
was not without a court house or state house ; while their visible form is gone,
their memory still remains. Here was to be a market place, and for that the
Green literally was used for a considerable part of its early history. The
Market Place meant more, however, than a mere place of barter. It was a social
center, a field where the people should gather for fairs and gala days, a rallying
ground for the children, and these the Green has been. Here, finall.y, was to
be the place of burial, and here, indeed, for almost two centuries after its estab-
lishment, "the rude forefathers of the hamlet slept." In a word, it can safely

82 A MODERN HISTORY OF NEW HAVEN

be claimed as the institution which, more than anything else, makes New Haven
unique among the communities.

The character of the Greeu, its integrity and even its existence, have not been
maintained without a struggle. But to this end its peculiar ownership
has materially contributed. Mention is frequently made of the "Proprietors
Committee," and its origin is of interest. The wealth that was in the Daven-
port-Eaton party, when it lauded, was not evenly distributed. Some few were
the capitalists of that £30,000 or thereabout, and they became the landholders.
"The Free Planters," as they were called. The original nine squares which
John Brockett laid out, the tract later puchased from ilomauguin, the sachem,
and the much larger purchase made still later from Moutowese — all these were
held by the same "Free Planters." The Market Place, of course, was included
in these. The other lands were dispersed, in time, to private ownership. Tlie
Market Place alone remained in their holding.

Later they were called "the proprietors," or more formally. "The Proprie-
tors of Common and Undivided Lands," of which, naturally, there were for
many years other tracts than the Market Place. In 1810, by authority of the
General A.ssembly, a "Proprietors Committee" of five, independent and self-
perpetuating, was created to hold the Gi-een and such other property as might
properly be classed with it. That body still exists, and is the proprietor of the
Green. It is. as New Haven has more than once had occasion to know, the
bulwark of its liberties as far as the Green is concerned.

It is worth recalling that when New Haven became a city in 1784, its first
charter contained a surprising provision giving the city power to exchange the
upper part of the Green "for other lands, for highways or another Green, and
to sell and dispose thereof for that purpose." It goes without saying that this
power was never exercised, but the provision is interesting. It may be an indi-
cation that in that earl.y day there was a tendency on the part of the people to
take the Green and do with it as they pleased. New Haven has not wholly
got over that tendency yet, but there is hope that it will. Mr. Blake, who is a
good lawyer, concisely remarks that the provision in the old charter "was cer-
tainly extraordinary, and of course totally invalid." It never reappeared after
the first revision.

The growth of New Haven and the creation of conditions never conceived of
when one-ninth of the original city was devoted to the Market Place, has
made a tremendous pressure on the Green. Here is a piece of central real estate
whose monetary value is set at $.3,500,000. The traffic which passes one corner
of it was at one time, liefore New Haven took steps to divert some of it, as
heavy as that at any street comer in America. New Haven has outgrown the
old width of the streets which surround the Green, which were not, considering
that their projectors expected this to become a commercial metropolis of the New
World, measured with a prophetic eye. Not once nor twice have the "prac-
ticalists" of modern New Haven cast envious eyes on the Green as a traditional
and useless adornment occupying space some of which might well be used for
purposes of necessary traffic. But against every such suggestion or effort the

AND EASTERN NEW HAVEN COUNTY 83

proprietors of the Green, undoubtedly supported by the majority pulilic senti-
ment of the city, have firmly stood. The most they would concede — and that,
in the opinion of many, was too mueli — was the removal of the fence at the busy
Church and Chapel street corner, and the paving of that part of the Green as
a sort of concourse, which relieves the pressure and affords more easy crossing
for those who pass from one trolley line to another. Thus a sort of "nibbling"
process has begun at that corner, which may become serious if it goes too far.

New Haven will have reason to remember the experience of 1917 as a result
of the effort to encroach on the Green in another way. The multiplying motor
car had la-ought about a use of the Green of which the makers of the Market
Place little dreamed. That part of Temple Street which passes through it had
become a popular parking place for automobiles. At times there would be a
solid line of them all through the Green, on each side of Temple Street. The
result was some congestion, and authoritative opinion said that there was need
for more room. In front of the North Church and for a little distance to the
south of it, the .street had some time previously, and for some reason (without
authority, it appears) been widened several feet. The motorists and their friends
now proposed to extend that widening all the way to Chapel Street, and also
to add a .slice on the east side of the street. The result, as it appeared, would have
been, not so much to widen the street, as to make possible the continued parking
of cars there without interfering witli traffic. The people would have objected
to any encroachment on the Green for any purpose but they more than objected
to an encroachment to .serve the convenience of a few of the citizens, and they
said so so strongly that the board of aldermen, after the mayor had once vetoed
their act widening the street, receded from their position and forbade the
further parking of cars on the Green. It was said by as good a lawyer as former
Judge and Governor Simeon E. Baldwin that no action widening the street
through the Green would in any case have stood in the courts.

In all respects New Haven has stood against encroachment on the Green.
Much as the city has needed a waiting room and shelter for the thousands who
daily transfer at the Green corner between the various lines of street railway
cars, the proposal to build it above the surface on the Green has been resisted
from the first. It may be that eventually, observing more closely the largeness
of the plan which its original makers had for the Green, there will be a yielding
in this respect.

The settlers took New Haven as they found it. The sheltering harbor, and
perhaps the natural location between the sentinel rocks, had attracted them.
They were not terrified, if they knew, by the fact that a considerable portion of
the point between the two creeks that emptied into the harbor west of the
Quinnipiac was ordinary swamp. Neither did it prevent John Brockett from
making:- the Market Place the center of his symmetrical nine siqaares that it was
largely a swamp. The place where the pilgrims put their first church would

84 A MODERN HISTORY OF NEW HAVEN

uot, by our standards, be L-onsidered a favorable cliureh site. .So we have to
picture tlie Market Place of 1640 as a sandy, grassless tract to the northwest
of the Meeting House, with rough stumps of trees between the forest survivors
on its partly cleared area. But more dismal was the prospect from the front
of the Meeting House. There, where the trees had been cleared off, their stumps
stood out of just a plain, unrouiantic swamp, where the "peepers" peeped to
herald the spring, wiiere the frogs croaked later and where the mosquitoes grew
at every favorable opportunity. Out of that swamp, at the southeast corner
of the Ma)'kel Place, a sluggish brook started on its way, ueeessitatiu-.; a foot
bridge over it to pass along what was later Church Street, but was then "Th''
Mill Higliway" as it started northward. There were two causeways across the
marsh of the lower Green, one coming from "Mr. Davenport's Walk," the
private wa.v fi-om the rear of the pastor's house on lower Elm Street, and the
other coming just where Governor Eaton would be likely to enter the Green
in coming from his tine residence across the wa.v. There was a stockade, if we
ma.v believe the most careful authorities, around tlie outside of the nine squares,
and each of the other squares had its paling, but the Green enjoyed the
doubtful distinction of having not even a railing to mark its boundary lines.
Where the Green ended and Church or Chapel or College or Elm Street began
was a matter for guessing. It was, in one sense, much of a "common."

It liad its common and constant uses. On Sunday, the great day of the week,
the roll of the first and the second drum, calling the people to worship, sounded
from the turret of that great, square, cheerless first Meeting House in the exact
center of the Market Place. Tliere the people gathered, earlier in the morning
tlian tlie present luxurious church hour of eleven o'clock, we may well believe,
since they liad to sit through a two-hour prayer and a two-hour sermon in addition
to long expositions of the Scriptures, and deliberately "lined" hymns, and get
through by noon. After an hour for some refreshment and warmth, which most
of them got in their houses, it seems probaltle — this was before the da.ys of long
journeys to the church — they reassemliled for a sei'viee very like unto the first.
The chiUlreu, ranged on tlie pulpit stairs or along the sides of the room, must
have yearned to look out on the pleasant scener.y of the Market Place, a wicked-
ness for wliich they were sternl.y reproved, no doubt. In the short winter days,
the closing numbers of the afternoon service must often have been in the dusk,
or worse, and tlie people picked their way liomeward in the dark, having very
decidedly "made a day of it." Yes, the people did use their Green on Sundays,
and in a way niatei-ially different from its use now on a summer da,^■, when the
uHiltitudcs i-est on the ]iark l)enches or on the grass, largely unlieeding tlie call
of the churches.

There were other sojourns on the Green in tliose days even more unpleasant,
however. Governor Eaton meted out stern justice to the offenders brought l>efore
him. and ruled tlie people with as stern a hand on the other six da.ys as Pastor
Davenport did on tlie seventh. The stocks and the pillory were familiar features
of the landscape of the upper Green, nearl.y opposite where Farnam Hall now
stands. They were seldom witliout an occupant, following Governor Eaton's

AND EASTERN NEW HAVEN COUNTY 85

court sessions. The "Gaol" stood nearly east of them, close by where now runs
the walk which emerges from the Green at the corner of College and Elm. It
had its frequent sojourners, too. There was a Watch house hard by it, for with
the Gaol and the pillory and the stocks and an occasionally used whipping post,
that part of the ilarket Place was a busy spot a good deal of the week. \Ve
may suppose that this was as attractive a spot for the more or less idle youth
of the town, and for all the youth and some of the elders who could get a spare
moment to see the show, as some of the "movie"' theaters further down town
now are.

In appearance the old ]\larket Place changed but slowly. Tiie old stumps
wore away with the years, the swamp gradually filled. But we may imagine
that up to the end of the seventeenth century there was little definite improve-
ment. The ^larket Place was for use, not for ornament. New Haven was having
sufficient difficulty in maintaining its existence. When the colony legislative
body met in New Haven, it used the old S(|uare Meeting House in the center of
the Green. It was in 1719 that the first state house M'as built, on the northwest
corner, nearly opposite the present Battell Chapel. It was not until 1769 that
the Pair Haven Society built the predecessor of the present North Church, and
still later that tlie first Trinity Church was built. Long before this, soon after
the original Meeting House was Iniilt, in fact, there was a cabin sehoolhouse
near where the North Church now stand.s — that was where Ezekiel Cheever
had his brief educational career in New Haven. It seems to have been John
Davenport's plan to keep the school as a feature of the Market Place, but that
use of the square declined nnieh earlier than the others. This first state house,
later used for a county house, was still later Tised for a town house for several
years, being taken down about 1785 or 1790.

It seems to have been about 1759 that the first positive attempt was made
to beautify the Green. A row of trees planted all around the square flourished
so well that they were making a good showing twenty years later. The efl'ect
of the thus beautified Green was such tliat it is said to have been largely instru-
mental in inducing the remark of General Garth, wlio led the British invasion
of New Haven in 1779, that the city was "too pretty to burn." It sounds like
a fairy tale, but if there is any truth in it, the New Haven of that time had
reason to appreciate its Green.

This planting of the Green with shade trees was a definite part of the begin-
ning of the work of James Hillhouse the elder, and of the Rev. David Austin
(later known as the founder of Austin, Texas) to make New Haven the "City of
Elms." We hear of other inner rows of ti'ees on the east and west sides of fhe
Green which they planted in 1796. More trees were planted in 1808, just
which seems not wholly clear. But it is probable that about this time was
started that Temple Street archway which was the pride of the "City of Elms"
in the fourth quarter of the nineteenth century. In 1839 the common council
oi'dered 150 elms and maples planted on the Green.

There seems to have been at least one definite attempt to make the Green a
raai-ket place in tlie literal sense. In 1785 a Market House was built on Chapel

86 A MODERN HISTORY OF NEW HAVEN

Street at the southeast corner. The boundary lines were indistinct as late as
that, and there is reason to suppose that this occupied a part oi' the Green's
surface. But there were other markets more conveniently situated, and there is
no evidence that this one had a prosperous existence. Apparently it was discon-
tinued after a few years, and soon disappeared altogether.

The Green was first fenced in 1800. That fence was of a type which came,
perhaps in imitation of New Haven, to be characteristic of the village green in
all New England towns. Squared and pointed posts supported a double row of
those square rails, set with the edges upward, the whole painted white. That, it
appears, was the orthodox green fence. Wooster Square had one like it, as we
shall see. This fence stood until 1846, when it was replaced by the present
stone posts and iron rails.

The fence did not keep out the foraging horses and cattle, which continued
to be pastured on the Green until August, 1821, after which the custom was
discouraged. But the Common Council thought it necessary in 1827 to direct
the committee in charge of the pulilie square to prevent horses and cattle from
feeding on the Green. The swamp did not disappear all at once, and as late
as 1799 there was too much water there, evidently, for permission — or perhaps
it was an order — was then given to make water courses for carrying off the
water. "It was more or less boggy until after 1820," Mr. Blake briefly remarks.
From the time the first member of the Davenpoi't-Eaton party passed away-
until 1797 the original Meeting House churchyard was in the Green back of
Center Church. In the course of that 160 years the city of the dead easily
became a large one. It was plain enough that unless the Green was to be devoted
wholly to that purpose, some other burial ground must be found. Grove Street
Cemetery was opened in 1797, and there probably were few burials on the Green
after that. There surely were none after 1812. In 1821, or thereabout, most
of the monuments were removed to Grove Street Cemetery. In 1849, the
Dixwell monument was erected in the rear of Center Church.

Street lights, as we know them, distinctly belong to the modern New Haven,
The streets were lighted by gas until about the middle of the nineteenth cen-
tury ; the Green was fir.st lighted by gas in 1855. When New Haven changed to
electricity, the Green shared in the change. Of the "Great White Way" the
Green got only the reflected light, though on not a few special occasions in the
early part of tlie twentieth century the Green has been brilliantly and artistic-
ally lighted, as on Fourths of July, and times of welcome to distinguished
visitors. The lower Green, with the Liberty pole in the center, lends itself
very favorably to that sort of decoration, and many times in recent years the
Green at night has presented a scene of beauty long to be remembered.

Of course the orthodox green everywhere has to have a "Liberty pole."
This does not happen so, but is the definite result of the activities of a society
known as the "Sons of Liberty," which came into existence at the time of the
Revolutionary war, and made it its business to see that every town had a
Liberty pole. The Green got its pole in 1775 or 1776, but the British soldiers
who visited the town three or four years later probably saw to its taking down.

AND EASTERN NEW HAVEN COUNTY 87

even if they did spare tlie towa from burning. The pole was restored soon
afterward.

Public wells were an institution in the old New England town, and New
Haven had its share, on the Green. There have been live wells on the Green in
its time — all of blessed memory now. Two of these were tire wells, and did not
.imouut to much. Another served for a considerable time. The fourth was the
familiar old "'town pump" of a century, at the corner of Church and Chapel.

The oldest well was dug nobody knows when in the vicinity of the old ' ' gaol. ' "
Probably it slaked the thii-st of many sufferers, some of them in the pillory
or the stocks, perhaps. It was closed somewhere between 1840 and 1850. The
two fire wells stood, the first about 1797, at the corner of Chapel and Temple
streets, and the other in 1819 near the corner of Elm and Temple streets. They
w-ere usually dry, we are told. Perhaps this was from the drain of fire use, but
it is more likely that they did not strike those unfailing springs which fed the
swamp of old at the lower corner of the Green. They disappeared long ago.

The well so many have known, for whose demise so many mourned, was dug
in 1813 at the corner of Church and Chapel streets. Its familiar canopy and
three-handled pump were erected in 1878, though the working parts of the
pump must have had occasional renewal in the almost constant use it received
for more than thirty years afterward. For the last two decades of the use of
this well New Plaven 's size, and the increasing contamination of the soil and
the spring sources, were such as to make its water decidedly dangerous to use,
but the people, scorning typhoid or anything like it, clung to the dear old pump.
Its water was cool in summer, and they liked it. Many pitchers came to its
fountain in the 3'ears of its existence, even to the last. At length the city,
despite protests, discontinued it in 1913.

^Meanwhile, the Bennett fountain's classic Greek temple, a gift of the late
Philo S. Bennett, was erected at this corner in 1908. It never enjoyed the
popularity of the well, for its stream is reservoir water. A "bubbler," fed from
the same source, now stands near where the old pump was.

Not so many people knew of the fifth well, and many of these have forgotten
it. In his last term as mayor, about 1907, it seemed good to the Hon. John P.
Studley to sink an artesian well at this corner, not many feet from the old pump.
At a considerable expense, he drove a pipe down about 100 feet, and got a good
flow of water. No pump was ever attached to it, for it was demonstrated that
water from so large a spring would be worse contaminated than water from the
old one. and the well was some time ago covered up.

Ill

In more senses than is commonly realized the Green has from the first been
the heart and center of the life of New Haven. It was so in 1640, when the 300
or thereaboiit of Davenport's little company gathered from their nine squares
with their 144 acres to worship on Sunday at the Meeting House on the Market
Place. It is so in 1917. when a city of perhaps 175.000 people, living spread

88 A MODERN HISTORY OF NEAV HAVEN

over 12,000 acres, comprising some fifty nationalities, sends all sorts of its people
on Sunday either to worship in the churches on the Green, to rest on the park
seats in the shade of its trees, or to stretch with their wives and children on
its grass.

These are the obvious uses. It has in its time served many purposes, and
serves them now. Its utility and sentiment and historical and community im-
portance do not in the least diminish with the years. It was from the first, as
we have seen, a religious center. The original church has had three edifices there.
The third, the noble Center Church which we see today, was erected in 1813.
Trinity Church's handsome edifice, the second in its history, was built in 1814.
The present North, or United Church building, standing near the site of the
Fair Haven Church, also was erected in 1814.

There was another church on the Green — two of them, in fact. It is familiar
history, of course, that the original building of the First Methodist Church stood
on the Green. There was more or less of an unpleasant looking askance, as
late as 1821. of the old Congregational churches toward the Methodists, but there
seems to have been no opposition to the erection of a church of this denomination
there. It was probably because there was more room there — the old town house
and prison and the other marks of crude penal practices, had long since dis-
appeared — that the northwest corner of the Green was chosen. There the
Methodists erected their first building.

No doubt it was an old story, familiar to au earlier generation, which
Mr. Blake delightfully revived in his "Chronicles," about what happened to
this church when it was fir.st erected. The sinful pretense of the building they
had planned seems to have filled the souls of the Methodist brethren with many
misgivings. As we see it in the pictures, it was a square, bare building, without
anything like a spire, looking for all the world like a barn except for its liberal
supply of windows. Yet the brethren feared it would be too decorative. And
the officiating elder prayed, we are told, that if it was not in accordance with
Divine will the four winds of heaven might level it with the ground. The
brethren might have been wiser in their generation, for they seem not to have
completely finished the braces. And the very next day the wind arrived from
heaven in the shape of the celebrated gale of September, 1821, and it was
entirely sufficient. It laid the bricks of the edifice as flat as before they had
even .seen mortar.

The brethren appear not to have accepted this exactly as an answer to the
prayer, or even as a warning against sinful display. Perhaps they compared
it with the ornate churches in the center of the Green, and did some thinking.
At any rate, they at once began to relay their bricks in the same spot, and
finished the rebuilding a year later. There was another dedicatory prayer,
but it is said to have been more caiitious. This building stood iintil 1848, when
the people changed to their present building and site. It is noticeable that no
compunction existed then against choosing a good type of architecture.

The Green has always been, as it was intended to be, a political and civic
forum for the community. It never served, as the faithful of the Davenport

AND EASTERN NEW HAVEN COUNTY 89

party are said to have expected it to serve, as a gathering place for the people
on Christ's second coming, but many a gathering in which his patriotic soul
delighted has it seen in its three hundred years. Whenever the people would
gather, there they have found room. Independence days have found mighty
multitudes there of those who, though of many lands and tongues, became one
on its free soil. The Green has always been the arena of free speech — too free
speech, it has seemed at times. All political parties have been permitted to
present their arguments there. Though New Haven and New England were
against him, and though the young men of Yale hovered around and more or less
positively voiced their disapproval, Mr. Bryan repeatedly spoke on the Green'
in his tours preliminary to his defeats. Hiram Johnson presented there in 1912
the claims of Mr. Roosevelt. It has seen many stirring scenes, heard much
fervid eloquence, and still remains to serve as a gathering place for such of the
people as would hear any message of citizenship.

In a distinct and conspicuous sense, the Green has been an educational
camj)us. John Davenport, it may be, would have erected his college on the
Market Place, if he had achieved it in his time. It was not to be then, and
when it did come, it was for sufficient reasons to be elsewhere. Even Daven-
port 's more primary educational system did not long flourish on the Green.
The common meeting ground of all the people was to serve the community's
educational ends more broadly. It had, to be sure, the first schoolhouse in New
Haven, built very soon after the first Meeting House. Hopkins Grammar School -
was there, too, and served through fifteen decades of the colony's struggling
educational beginnings. We find, moi-eover. that the first town library, about''
1661, was housed in this first school building. The building remained for some
time after that, and the Green apparently was regarded as the place of educa-
tion, at least until some time after the appearance of Yale in New Haven.

Yale has from the beginning had direct relations with the Green. It was in
the old Meeting House on the Market Place that the General As.sembly of 1701
confirmed the charter prepared by James Pierpont and his associates. It was
on that same I\Iarket Place, in the fleeting House or in one or another of the
succeeding state houses, that the General Assembly passed most of the otlier
acts vitally affecting the progress of the college. It was in Center Church that
the college, up to the time when Woolsey Hall was completed soon after 1900,
held its annual commencement exercises. There still the scholastic procession
forms which annually proceeds to Woolsey Hall. There the students of the
college attended church until well on in the nineteenth century. New Yale's
first im))rcssion of old Yale is generally gained from the Green, and many a
stiident dweller on the east side of the old cpiadrangle found inspiration during
his four years, from the view his windows afforded of the fine old square. There
the students have been wont to gather when they would "gambol on the Green,"
and there have been gatherings of them there, as we have seen, that did them less
than credit. But Yale continues to have a more or less sentimental interest in
the Green, and feels, Avithnut challenge from the people, a sort of joint pro-
prietorship.

90 A MODERN HISTORY OF NEW HAVEN

For two centuries the Green was the seat of judicial tribunals, and still is,
in a sense. Such judicial standing as the old gaol, stocks, pillory and watch
house, had, was there maintained at the very first, though Governor Eaton, it
seems, had his seat of office in his imposing house on Elm Street. The Meeting
House, being the only adequate public building for almost all of the first cen-
tury, served as the state house as well, when the legislature met in New Haven,
up to 1719, when the first state house was built near the coi-ner of College and
Elm streets. It served until 1763, when the second, as we have seen, was
erected on Temple Street, between the first Trinity Church and Center Church's
predecessor. It disappeared in 1828, to give place to the last state house which
the Green saw, built in 1831. It stood, as many of the residents of New Haven
well recall, on the slope to the westward of Center Church. Its use as a state
house was discontinued, of course, when New Haven ceased to be the joint
capital, but the sentiment of New Haven and the architectural dignity of the
building preserved it until 1889. There are many who wish it had been pre-
served longer. The not generally regretted tendency, however, has been to
keep the modern Green clear of buildings. All of New Haven's chief judicial
and legislative buildings have always overlooked, and still overlook, the Green.

The Green has served as the "ge"neral training ground" of tlie colony days,
the military field of later times. There were gathered and drilled such forces
as New Haven furnished for the help of its neighbors in the Indian trouble
days before the Revolution. There the "minute men" rallied. There, on an
occasion which New Haven is not permitted to forget, the Foot Guards were
drawn up after their victorious encounter with the selectmen and the receipt
of their supply of powder, and received pastoral admonition and spiritual
speeding on their mi.ssion from the Rev. Jonathan Edwards.

It was on the Green, that is, in Center Church, that the citizens met in 1779
to devise ways and means to defend the town against the British invasion that
was on the way. It was there, probably, that the British invaders issued their
futile proclamation of their king's sovereignty over everything in sight. It
was there, certainly, that they received their impression that New Haven was
"too pretty to burn." It was on the Green, ten years later, that the exultant
people gathered to welcome the nation's hero of the war, and its first president.
General Washington.

In was on the Green, when three-quarters of a century later the clouds of
the Civil war lowered, that the defenders of the T^nion met when making ready
to go to the battle front. It was there, in the half century following, that New
Haven held all its military reviews and demonstrations. It was never a field
more seeming martial than in the thrilling months following the American
recognition of war in 1917, when college men and townsmen alike drilled there
daily in preparation for the service of their country on a foreign field.

The Green has often afforded a meeting place for the children, in jubilees,
Sunday school gatherings, meetings of school children, folk dances and the like,
in this respect fulfilling the mission of the Old World market place. Two
notable occasions of the sort were the Children's Jubilee, on July 23, 1851, when

AND EASTERN NEW HAVEN COUNTY 91

fourteen Sunday schools assembled on the Green after a short parade ; and
again on October 8, 1916, when the Green was the objective point of the gi'eat
Sunday school parade which was a part of the advertising convention of the
New Haven Publicity Club. At that time fifty Sunday schools of New Haven
and vicinity, with over 5,000 in line, paraded the principal streets of the city
with floats and banners, and afterward gathered on the Green to sing, listen
to addresses and receive banners of award.

For several years the children of Lowell House and the playgrounds gave
an annual exhibition of drills and fancy and folk dances on the Green, and few
American cities have seen finer sights than these groups of children, presenting
on this New World field of democracy some of the scenes familiar to the market
places of the Old World.

The Green in New Haven has been the model for many of the daughter towns •
of the New Haven district. Guilford has a green almost as large, and as much
of an institution in the town. Madison's green is its civic center, for generations
the pride of the town. East Haven, West Haven, Branford, have their dis-
tinctive if less imposing central squares. It would be interesting to know how
many towns there are in New England, particularity in Connecticut, which got
their inspiration from the Green at New Haven. For this is a peculiarly New-
Haven institution, almost as peculiar to the town as are East and West Rocks
and Yale University. It is with reason that the town regards it with peculiar
pride, and jealously guards it from encroachment.

CHAPTER XII
NEW HAVEN'S PARK SYSTEM

ITS MODERN DEVELOPMENT FROM EAST AND WEST ROCKS — THE INTERESTING SYSTEM

OF CITY SQUARES

New Haven had tlie (ireen, strange as it may seem, fnr almost two centuries
and a half before it had a pulilie park. It had Wooster Square, a smaller imita-
tion of the Green, for more than fifty years, but it never thought of it as we in
these days think of a park. Perhaps the existence of these and other public
squares, creating the impression that the city was well supplied with breathing
spaces, delayed rather than helped the beginning of an adequate park system.
The New Haven of 1880 had only sixty-three thousand people. It was a com-
modiovis city, for that number, and they seemed to have plenty of room. The
conception of the twentieth century public park had not dawned, at least not
upon New Haven.

Nor is it less surprising that when New Haven went into parks, it went in
with a rush. The two notable landmarks. East and West Rock, which had dis-
tinguished New Haven for three centuries and more, were the inspiration. Per-
haps the idea of making them public parks did not dawn all at once. The good
work was started in 1880. when the city received the gift of eighty-seven acres ad-
joining East Rock. Gifts of money to the extent of twelve thousand dollai-s were
received from public spirited citizens, and with that money East Rock was
purchased from the then owner, the late Milton J. Stewart. It is a popular tradi-
tion that he found the money just sufficient for the erection of the twelve identical
and unlovely tenement houses, which for thirty-five years thereafter desperately
clung to the edge of State Street next to the meadows near Mill River, and were
commonly known as "Stewart's Folly." Anyway, he built them, and the
story is that they did him little good. They passed from hand to hand, and
from one stage of dissolution to another, until in the course of human events
and park progress East Rock itself extended to them in 191.5. A short time
afterward, the city erased the last of them, and poetic justice was complete.

Several hundred acres were inehided in the first purchase, but it lay prac-
tically idle in the hands of the city for several years. East Rock's summit was
accessible to the good climber, and he was well repaid. But the attention of the

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CELLAR AT GUILFORD IX «"HICH GOVERNOR WILLIAM LEETE CONCEALED THE
REGICIDES CWFFE AND WHALLEY IN 1661

AND EASTERN NEW HAVEN COUNTY 9S

city in general was little attracted. The park project, however, had good
friends. Henry T. Blake, who has made the Green historic by his "Chronicles,"
had the vision, and earnestly advocated the development of East Rock Park.
He was ably seconded by others, chief among them Henry F. English of the
present park commission. They kept the matter before the public until they
secured funds for the laying out of a drive to the summit of East Rock. Next
came the decision of the city to erect its soldiers' monument at the summit. There
it was completed in 1887, at a total cost of $.50,000, and stands a.s a landmark
that accents the notaljle eminence, verily —

"First glimpse of home to the sailor, as he makes the liarbor round.
And last slow, lingering vision, dear to the outward bound."

It memorializes, with its bronze tablets bearing their names, the soldiers and
sailors of New Haven who died in the great wars between 1766 and 1865. East
Rock rises sheer 363 feet above the New Haven plain at its foot, and this shaft
of granite tops it for 112 feet more.

Bj' gradual additions the extent of East Rock, as the first and now the
largest of New Haven's parks, has grown to 423.05 acres, and it embraces not
only the whole of East Rock and Indian Head adjoining, but reaches over a
broad strip of wood and meadow on each side of Mill River, extending from
AVhitney Avenue and Lake Whitney on one side to Orange and State streets
on the others. It is approached by drives from Whitney, Orange and State
streets and the Ridge road. There are now within it six miles of footpaths and
nearly seven and one-half miles of drives, three of which wind from different
entrances easily toward the summit.

Thus easily reached — two electric railwa.ys take those who cannot walk the
two miles from city liall to the entrance of the park — East Rock Park is a
favorite public resort at all but the hottest and the winter seasons of the year.
Aside from the well kept drives and paths, and some lawns and a few flowers
around the monument at the summit, nature has been mostly undisturbed,
except over at that spot near the State Street entrance known as the "Zoo."
There a miscellaneous and growing collection of animal and bird life is kept
on exhibition, eompi-ising a number of bears, some guinea pigs, hares, peacocks,
pheasants, guinea hens and bronze turkeys. This collection proves very popular
with the public.

From the brow of the rock itself lies the city spread out, a near view for all
who care to see it. To the southward are the hai'bor and the Sound, with the
white sand cliffs of Long Island looming up on a clear day. To the east and
northeast are some glimpses of North Haven, with the "Sleeping Giant" always
stretched in the distance. And the Hanging Hills of IMeriden are visible lie.yond,
at times. It is a view that well repays the climb, and never grows old for the
real admirer of New Haven's distinctive scenery.

Next in size, next in age and doubtless next in importance is the twin park
of West Rock. New Haven was well committed to the park business, and had
East Rock well in hand, when it acquired the greater part of West Rock. Here,
with the additions that have since been made, are 281 acres of historic ground.

94 A MODEKN HISTORY OF NEW HAVEN

For West Koek, iu addition to its natural advantages of elevation and scenery,
gets its interest from the fact that at one end of it is that split boulder known
as "Judges' Cave." Whether or not there was in 1661 anything there that
could properly be described as a cave nobody now living knows. But it is
pretty certain that in those days West Rock was a fairly inaccessible spot,
'perhaps fortified by wild beasts as well as by bad climbing against any minions
• of the second Charles who may have come hunting the judges who condemned
the first. Today, this cleft in the rocks might casually screen a man from sight,
but liardly would effectually conceal him from a persistent hunter. It has, of
course, been a constant subject of public curiosity. To stimulate some historical
accuracy in the observation, the Connecticut Society of Colonial Wars recently
erected a handsome bronze tablet on the face of the boulder, recording the fact
that here in 1661 Goffe and Whalley, two of the regicide judges, were reputed
to have found temporary refuge from the officers of King C'harles. Some time
before that, however, some protection from the vandals and relic hunters was
found necessary, and a substantial and not easily surmounted iron fence now
requires the curious to observe the rock at a distance of at least six feet.

West Rock, at its summit, is 410 feet above the level of the Sound. The
view it gives of New Haven and the surrounding country is different, more
varied and by many considered more attractive than that from East Rock.
There is that same view of the Sound and of Long. Island, except that in the
nearer distance the city and the harbor stretch out more in detail, and there is
added the attractive part of modern New Haven known as Westville. There
is also, to the north and northwest, the lordly sweep of the Woodbridge Hills.
West Haven looms toward the southwest, and Lighthouse Point, \vith its white
old shaft, tips the eastern edge of the harbor. It is easy, looking off over the
city, to pick out the points of interest, with the Taft Hotel always as a range-
finder. And to the east is the plain and hills of the west and northwest part
of Hamden.

West Rock Park has three miles of romantic drives, besides a convenient
numlier of footpaths, by which it is approached from Whalley and Springside
avenues. It is three miles from the center of the city, but electric cars help
the weary. Here also nature has not been marred by attempts at art, and there
are considerable areas of original woodland.

New Haven's "show park," as it may justly be called, is Edgewood. On,
either side of the West River, at a point where some years ago they straight-
ened the river into the shape of a canal, the city has over 130 acres of meadow
and knoll. It is at the extreme western end of the city proper, and about two
miles from city hall. Edgewood Avenue, on its way to Westville, runs through
it. For the better part of half a mile, leading from toward the center of the
city, is a broad parkway, or mall, shaded by a double row of elm trees. It
reaches entirely to the park, and is now a part of it. The entire street Is built
up with fine residences.

The original or upland part of the park, which was acquired in 1891, is laid
out in lawns and borders of modern or old fashioned flowers. In one corner

AND EASTERN NEW HAVEN COUNTY 95

is a fine old oak tree, witli spreading, drooping branches, wliere tlie children love
to play, and their parents love to sit on the circling benches and take in the shaded
breeze. In the opposite corner is a children's playground, with swings, flying
rings, see-saws and other paraphernalia. Down the bank toward where Chapel
Street runs out past the Yale Bowl is an artificial lake, where black and white
swans sail grandly, and ducks stand interestingly on their heads, while they
pull worms out of the bottom. Then the park strikes the river, and it.s meadows
make a straight course on either side toward Whalley Avenue. There is a good
supply of fine drives.

The late Felix Chillingworth was in a sense the father of this particular
jiark, and was the urger, while serving on the Board of Aldermen, of much of
its development. He was also instrumental in the digging of the "Chilling-
worth well" at the east end of the park, and to it many pitchers came in the
days when water from springs under the growing city was deemed safe for
drinking purposes. The park also contains a most attractive rose garden and
arbors, and its floral attractions arc steadily heightened as the yeai-s pass.

[t IS the most accessible of the larger parks of New Haven, in one of the
best of its residence districts, and naturally is visited by more petiplc in the
year than are any of the others. Its name comes from that which "tiio master
of Edgewood, " Donald G. iVIitehell, whose home for decades was in the south-
western part of Westville, give to his estate and the surrounding region.

In the New Haven of thirty or forty years ago there was a section that did
not then look as though it would soon be an ornament or advantage to the city,
t'l .say nothing of being good residence territoiy. It was the "slaughter house
district" at its northwest corner. Here was a low sand plain where was the
.slaughter house that provided the city with meat in the days before the western
packing houses took all that responsibility. Stretching for a mile or so beyond
it was an area of swamps and ponds, habitat of the beaver in the earlier days,
habitat of the mosquito in any days. The whole region, in fact, was productive
of mosquitos and flies if not of malaria. At the time when New Haven 's park
development really began, it was in crying need of redemption.

The upper part of the old slaughter house section was first taken, and more
as fast as it might be improved. It was an expensive task, and the park depart-
ment has never been over-supplied with funds. But gradually the waste has
been reclaimed, and through gift and purchase the park, which was no more
than a name for many years, recognizable as a park only on the maps, has
assumed impressive proportions and appearance. There has been of late years
the double purpose of building a park and eliminating one of the worst mos-
quito-breeding territories in the city. The swamps and mar.shes have been
drained, the underbrusli of the wooded parts has been cleared up, and new
trees have been set where trees were needed. In the older part, the section now
assumes the appearance of a park, with something like walks and lawns. There
are football and baseball fields and general provisions for a playground. The
total area now held here by the city puts Beaver Ponds into the first class of

96 A MODERN HISTORY OF NEW HAVEN

New Haven's parks, with about 120 acres. It is the purpose of the city to
considerably increase this area.

Beaver Ponds Park, which now stretches from the junction of Goffe and
County streets all the way to the Ilauiden line, is in a section of the city which
is bound to develop and increasingly need a park. It has almost boundless
possibilities, for the work which has been done so far has been mostly of the
necessary sort, and the ornamental development of this large and somewhat
diversified area is yet to begin.

So much for New Haven's woodland and inland parks. It is a seaside city,
and might be expected to have some notable marine parks. It seems to be
the fate of seaside cities not to appreciate their possibilities. It is New Haven's
misfortune, which it shares with most of the New Haven county coast towns,
that it has permitted private ownership and enterprise to monopolize some of the
best of its shore, of which it has none too much. New Haven has, nevertheless,
some excellent seaside and waterside parks, most of them capable of extended
development.

"Oyster Point" they used to call it in an earlier day. Now that point of
sand past which the channel of West River finds its tortuous way out to the
harbor is "City Point." It is at the foot of Howard Avenue, an excellent
residence street. On the southeastern side of this is Bay View, a finely developed
marine park of over twenty-three acres, which the city acquired in 1894. It
has wide and sloping lawns, and in the midst of it is a pretty lake basin, while
shrubbery and trees, and seats enabling the wayfarer to rest in the shade and
view the sea, add to its attractiveness. There is one drive which gives a good
opportunity for seeing the park and the view.

Only a block away from this park, on the West River side of the Point, is
another tract which should be taken with it. though the park department is
pleased to cla.ss it with city S()uares. That is the Kimberly Avenue playground,
of seven acres, which is yet in an undeveloped state. It has great possibilities
as a seaside playground, though bathing facilities are unfortunately lacking
from both this and Bay View Park.

Around the older part of the harbor district of New Haven has grown a con-
gested residence district, largely inhaliitecl by citizens of foreign origin. No
section more needs breathing spaces. Here, running from tlie center of Water
Street out to the harljor front. Waterside Park does its best with its 171/4 acres.
In 1892 the city began the laborious task of filling in the mud flats to make this
park. Now it has a good surface of firm land, permanently protected by a sea
wall, with seats and walks and a good start of protecting trees. There are play-
grounds for the children who abound in the district. From the water end, one
gets an excellent idea of what the busiest part of modern New Haven's harbor
looks like.

Halfway down the east shore of New Haven harbor there is an eminence
whose basaltic elifiPs jut sharply into the water. It is called, of course, the
Palisades. Commanding a sweep of the whole mouth of the harbor, its strategic
advantage did not escape the authorities who felt the necessity of protecting

AND EASTERN NEW HAVEN COUNTY 97

New Haveu from iuvasiou. Here they built a fort, which they named iu honor
of Nathan Hale. This was especially developed at the time of the Civil war, and
the old earthworks built at that time are there still. There ai-e about foi'ty-uine
acres. This is territory varying from low meadow to the cliffs of the Palisades,
Of this the New Haven park department holds and has developed about thirty
acres. This is territory var.ying from low meadow to the cliffs of the Palisades,
wliich are directly on the water front. Fortunately, this tract includes some of
the best sandy bathing beach around New Haven, and here the city has erected
a considerable number of public bathing houses, whose facilities are improved
up to and beyond their limit through the bathing season. In many ways. Fort
Hale is one of the most fascinating of the city's parks.

A short distance due northeast of here, at the southern point of the eminence
which constitutes ''Fair Haveu Heights," is a point where it seemed to the
patriots of New Haven in 1812 there ought to be a fort to repel British invasion.
They threw up and armed their earthworks, and named it "Fort Woostsr, "
after Gen. David B. Wooster of Revolutionary fame. The grass-covered
ruins of the old fort show there today, and it gives name to Fort Wooster Park,
a highland tract of seventeen acres, giving an almost ideal view of the Sound,
the harbor and New Haven. Beacon Hill is an eminence whose opportunities well
repay the short dim!) from where the trolley line passes on Woodward Avenue,
or there are excellent drives running all through the park. Much of it is well
wooded, and there has been some attention to landscape improvement.

Just beyond where the old Yale boathouse used to squat on the flats as Mill
River crossed East Chapel Street, there is a triangular plot of land called
Quinnipiac Park. A few blocks beyond, the Quinnipiac River comes down to
meet the harbor, and this is a sort of cove which comes in to meet Mill River.
There are only eleven acres of it, being limited by Chapel Street, James Street
and the harbor, but it is in a congested district that greatly needs a park. For
the most part it is used for playground purposes, with little effort to develop
any scenic effect, but there are seats where the weary can rest and get the harbor
view. They used to be able to watch the Yale crew paddling around in the
cove and coming to and from the boathouse. Now they see them at a little
distance around the new Adee boathouse.

Fair Haven proper is as yet inadequately provided with parks, but it has
an excellent foundation for one in Clinton Park, the newest development of the
system. Here are twelve acres, extending from Atwater to North Front Street,
and having a frontage of 1,300 feet on the Quinnipiac River. It is just opposite
the point where the stream swells to a lagoon or bay half a mile wide, making
a body of water beautiful for view, excellent for boating and iu all respects
attractive. The Quinnipiac up to this point and beyond is i-eally an arm of the
harbor and scoured by the tides, so that here is a body of clean salt water,
excellent for bathing as well as boating, and having a good beach.

Clinton Parkway, a tree-shaded green covering the space between the inner
sides of Peck and English streets, and extending eight blocks w'estward from the
river to Ferry Street, makes a most attractive approach to this park. The

98 A MODERN HISTORY OP NEW HAVEN

Clinton Playground, covering the square bounded by Clinton Avenue, Maltby,
Grafton and Chatham streets, is only two blocks south of the parkway.

New Haven has nineteen city squares, counting everything. Most of these,
from the central Green down, were included in the jurisdiction turned over by
the city to the park department on January 1, 1912. The Green has already been
described. Next to the Green, in age and general importance, is Wooster Square,
bounded by Chapel, Academy, Greene and Wooster streets. When it was opened
in 1825, it was in the heart of the fashionable residence section of the city.
It was a second Green, with its almost five acres similarly laid out, neatly fenced,
probably with the same square-railed type of fence that seems to have been
thought good form for greens. The stone posts and iron rails have displaced the
white rails some time since. The square today is in the heart of the district
occupied by New Haven's 35,000 or more people of Italian blood. It is adorned
by an excellent statue of Christopher Columbus, which was presented to the city
by its Italian citizens to commemorate the 400th anniversary of his great dis-
covery.

Joeelyn Square is a nice little miniature green of 2.60 acres occupying the
city block between Walnut, Wallace, Humphrey and East streets. It is equipped
with playground apparatvis, and serves an important purpose in one of the
older crowded portions of the city.

.Trowbridge Square is a bit of land between Cedar, Carlisle, Portsea and
Salem streets. It measures 0.83 of an acre, and is equipped with some swings and
other playground apparatus. A breathing spot in a congested district.

Of the nature of the Green in their origin, and dating back to before the
establishment of the park system, are the two Broadway squares. They are
triangular bits which come in where Broadway spreads like a fan into Goffe
Street, Whalley and Dixwell avenues. One of them has a small soldiers' and
sailors' monument, in granite. Together they contain 0.87 of an acre.

An irreg\ilar spreading of Goffe Street, between Foote and Orchard, makes
a grass plot of 0.75 of an acre, which affords a playground to children and is
known as Goffe Square.

Hamilton Square is a long, narrow, enclosed strip on Hamilton Street, be-
tween Locust and Mj'rtle. It contains 0.55 of an acre.

Monitor Square is a handsome, fenced-in bit of green at the point where
Derby Avenue leaves Chapel Street, the triangle between these two streets and
Winthrop Avenue. It is adorned by, and in fact was created to shelter, the
distinguished Bushnell-Ericsson memorial, erected to commemorate the service
of Cornelius S. Bushnell, a son of Madison and New Haven, in making financially
possible the building of the historic "Monitor." The square has 0.3.3 of an
acre of ground.

A minute bit of green at the triangle of Henry, Munson and Ashmun streets
is called Henry Street plot. The surveyor says it contains 0.02 of an acre.

SOLDIERS' MOXL.MIONT, KAST ROCK I'ARK. XEW HAVEX

AND EASTERN NEW HAVEN COUNTY 99

Temple Square is where the electric cars swing down the grade from Whitney
Avenue and presently find themselves on Church Street. It is bounded by Whit-
ney, Temple and Trumbull, and measures 0.14 of an acre.

Kimberly plot is another microscopic triangle containing all of 0.02 of an
acre, at the junction of Kimberly Avenue and Lamberton Street.

State Street plot, just twice as large as the above, is a little strip on State
Street, at the junction of Lawrence and Mechanic.

Away out near No. 1 Chapel Street is 0.06 of an acre of spare space between
Ferry and Houston streets, so the city turfed and curbed it and called it Ferry
Street plot.

Clinton Parkway and Clinton Playground, already described, are parts of
Clinton Park. They contain together 6.1 acres.

Kimberly Playground has already been mentioned in connection with Bay
View Park. It contains seven acres, irregular in shape, and imperfectly de-
veloped. It has great possibilities, when filled and properly graded, for athletic
use.

Edgewood Parkway, counted for 4.4.5 acres, is a broad and handsome mall
which leads westward for several blocks as an approach to Edgewood Park,
and is now a part of it.

Sherman plot, of 0.0-3 acres, is another convenient triangle, at the point
where Sherman Avenue begins in conjunction with Winthrop Avenue and Oak
Street, which it was more desirable to turf over than to pave.

Defenders' Scjuare is as near an approach as it was possible to make to a
hi.storic spot. It is only 0.64 of an acre in area, but it is near the place where
the defenders of New Haven did their best to withstand the British invasion
of July 5. 1779. It was not from the view of the threatening cannon which stood
there, with its determined gun crew, that General Garth got the idea that New
Haven ought to be spared for its beauty. In 1906 an effort was begun to secure
an appropriation from the Legi.slature for help to build a monument to these
defenders. A plaster model, in miniature, of the proposed group, which was
placed in the lobby of the capitol at Hartford, received the compliment of
being called by President Luther of Trinity, who was fir.st a state senator in
1907, "a six-legged monstrosity." It is a modification of that gi-oup of three
men, in life-size bronze, which now adorns Defenders' Square.

Here, in all, is a park sj-stem consisting of ten public parks, with a total
area of something over 1,074 acres. To it are added nineteen city squares, which
include the central Green and the two playgi-ouuds, and increase the ai'ea
to 1,111.03 acres. They are well distributed over nearly all sections of the city,
so far as the limitations of the situation permit. They include some of the most
unusual city parks in New England, an equipment of which no city of New
Haven's size need be ashamed. The city squares alone, which include the im-
mensely valuable central Green property, have a real estate valuation of
$•3.676.03.5. The parks themselves, not being subject to taxation, have not
recently been appraised.

CHAPTER XIII
NEW HAVEN'S CHARTERS

HISTORY AND PROGRESS AND DEVELOPMENT FROM 1784 TO 1917 — CONSOLIDATION OP
TOWN AND CITY AND THE HOME RULE ACT — RECENT REVISION EFFORTS

Charter making, as a science, is modern. The charter, or more correctly,
charters, which served as the legal foundation of New Haven in the years from
1784 to the end of the nineteenth century were framed mainly on the constitu-
tion idea. They did not, at least at the first, conceive of the city as a business
institution or corporation. Nevertheless the city was made a corporation by these
charters, and gradually acquired, in spite of this idea, a body of laws fitted for
business management. Some stud,v of the development of these laws foi'ms an
instructive background for the understanding of the modern city.

If the original founders of our New England cities had not been so ready
to conceive of the city as necessarily limited in area, a condensed portion of the
town within which it was included, considerable trouble might have been saved
in later years. Yet it seemed and probably was necessary, in forming the City
of New Haven out of the somewhat rambling town that New Haven was in 1784,
to be concise and constricted. So it was that the original bounds of the City
of New Haven, as limited by the charter, read narrowly to us today. The
western boundary was high-water mark on the east side of West River; the
eastern was high-water mark on the east side of the harbor (continuing up
Mill River as a boundary line, presumably) ; the southern a line running from
City Point to Lighthouse Point; and the northern a line from Neck Bridge to the
Whalley Avenue Bridge over West River. This, leaving the separation from
Hamden somewhat indistinct, made the original New Haven a somewhat re-
stricted, "chunk" of land with the Green, as at the first, pi-actically in its center.

But it was in other respects that the first charter really was primintive. Per-
haps the idea of the mayor continuing in ofSce without further election was not
altogether wrong, but it surely was wrong to make the General Assembly the
power to determine his tenure of office. Four aldermen and a common council
of not more than twenty, were elected, and they were real city fathers. For
observe some of the things they were required to do : Choose jurors, lay out
highways, be the city court for the ti-ying of civil and criminal cases, and to

100

AND EASTERN NEW HAVEN COUNTY 101

legislate by-laws for such matters as markets and commerce within the city,
streets and highways, wharves, anchoring and mooring of vessels, trees planted
for shade, ornament, convenience or use, and their fruit, trespasses committed
in gardens, public walks and buildings, sweeping of chimneys and prevention of
fires, burial of the dead, public lights and lamps, restraining geese and swine
fi'om going at large, defining the qualifications in point of property of the mayor
and the aldermen, fixing penalties for anyone elected to office and refusing to
serve, determining the mode of taxation.

It was an admirably condensed charter, albeit crude. It lasted thirty-seven
years without radical revision, and it is not a little surprising that in that period
it seemed necessary to the people of the city to make only nine amendments,
most of them such as were inevitable 4o the gi'owth of the developing city. The
revision of 1821 seems to have been at the motion of the General Assembly rather
than due to a feeling in New Haven that a radical change was necessary. A
uniform charter was passed for the cities of Hartford, New Haven, New London,
Norwich and iliddletown. In each case it defined the territorial limits of the
city (and New Haven's was not, so far as appears, then changed). It provided
for annual meetings in each city to choose a mayor and four aldermen, but the
former was still to hold office at the pleasure of the General Assembly. A com-
mon council of not more than twenty was also elected annually. There were
also other elected officers, and various provisions necessary to the management
of a city, the whole being a decidedlj^ more modern document thaji that whieli
New Haven adopted in 1781.

In the next thirty-six years there were twenty-six amendments to this charter,
the first important one limiting the term of mayor to one year (though the
General A.ssembly still had the right to remove him sooner). At the same time
there was an effort to do something for the defining of street and Iniilding
lines. There were steadily developing provisions for the fire protection of the
city. A provision'was made in 1843 for dividing the city into wards, but for
some reason was repealed the following year. Wards were established, however,
in 1853. Each was to have one alderman and five eouncilmen. In 1856 there
appeared a public worry lest something should be done harming the integTity
of the Green, for it was provided that there be no erection of any building on
any of the public squares, even if the Proprietors' Committee did authorize it.

Six wards were provided by the charter of 1857, each with an alderman
and four eouncilmen. The municipal officers were somewhat as now elected.
The Court of Common Council elected the street commissioner. Great and
arduous duties w'cre still imposed upon this court, though of course it needs to
be remembered that the population of the city was then only 3fi,000. I\rany de-
tails lately ad.justed liy ordiiumce were still the concern of the comnion council.
It had also to arrange for the municipal appropriations.

The city was developing fast, however, and eleven yeai's later it seemed
necessary to make another revision. ^leanwhile, there had been twelve amend-
ments. In this period the population of the city had so run over the edges as
to make legislation for the town, and the beginning of confusion necessary.

102 A MODERN HISTORY OF NEW HAVEN

Six of the aiuendmeiits concerned the town, one of them providing for two
outside wards, each with its alderman and four eouncilmen. In 1860 was
incorporated the Westville School district, which still is a kingdom of its own.
The city was glad enough, however, to have in 1861 the help of the town in the
erection of a city hall.

The revision of 1868 re-defined and slightly changed the boundaries of the
city. It was bounded on the east by Mill River ; on the north by Hamden ; on
the west by Dixwell Avenue and the east bank of the West River to Oyster
Point, tlieii up by high-water mark to Tomlinson's liridge. This was reappor-
tioned into six wards. At the same time it was decreed that aldermen and
eouncilmen should sit as separate bodies. Then also was created a board of
finance, a road commissioner and boards of fire and police commissioners, the
police department being at the same time definitely created. It appears also
that at this time the fire department was exalted (though perhaps some of the
members did not so regard it) from a volunteer to a paid status. This charter
was duly amended in the following year, and it was found necessary to make a
revision in ninet.y-three sections of it. It was then made a crime for an alderman
or a councilman to accept a fee for his vote; the mayor was given veto power.
But of chief importance were the sections changing the provisions as to the
City Court, and further raising the salaries of mayor and city officers, which
had been elevated only the previous year. To obviate the necessity of a revision
every time this popular change seemed desirable, it was therewith provided
that a two-thirds vote of the common council might increase salaries.

Then followed ten years very busy with amendments. No less than fifty,
most of them of a routine nature, were adopted before the revision of 1881. One
highly important one, in 1872, was the establishment of a board of harlior com-
missioners, of five persons appointed by tlic governor. This act also defined the
limits of New Haven harbor. A board of health was established for New Haven
in the same year, consisting of six persons, three of them physicians, to be ap-
pointed by the mayor.

In 1872 the Borough of Fair Haven East was incorporated out of the Town
of East Haven (for the Quiniiijnac liad until then been the eastern lioundary
line of the town'). It is interesting also to note that in this busy legislative year
a ferry was incorporated to run from "a convenient point in the City of New
Haven to Lighthouse Point. ' '

The increase of the number of wards of the city to ten came in 1874. Also
the common council was authorized to divide the wards into voting districts.
It was at tliat time that the time of the city election was set for the first Monday
in October, the term of office being two years. All appointments were to lie
"yea" and "nay" by the common council. Tlie chairmen of the existing com-
missions were at that time made ex-officio members of the board of aldermen and
council, but could not vote. The city was divided into twelve wards in 1877, and
the time of election was changed to the first Tuesday in December. The number
of voting districts was increased to thirteen shortly after.

It liecaino necessary in 1878 to do some legislating for the Borougli of Fair

AND EASTERN NEW HAVEN COUNTY 103

Haven East, aud from time to tiiii<? appear evidences tliat the dual existence of
town and city was a double burden. In 1880 there was an important amendment
incorporating East Rock park, with mention of the park commission, whii-h had
been earlier created, hut without, evidently, a great burden of duties. In 1881
there was considerable legislation concerning that part of New Haven outside
of city limits.

The revision of 1881 had to do with ninety-four sections, forty-six pages.
It was fairly thorough and complete. The number of wards was not at that time
changed, remaining at twelve. Mayor and all city officers were elected biennially
in December. The duties of all officials were defined ; the mayor, as William S.
Pardee dryly says in his "Charter and Amendments," "shall be chief executive
and it shall be his duty to be vigilant." The charter of 1881 did not make the
mayor an especially potent individual. It seems to have been largely a routine
revision. The city was approaching the period when tinkering the charter
became a fixed habit. Some of the more important features were a new align-
ment and natural increase of salaries ; the provision that the aldermen and eoun-
cilmen conld obviate the mayor's veto by a majority vote (more power for the
mayor) ; the aldermen to fill all vacancies on boards and "of the same polities."
Mayor conld sit with boards, and vote in case of tie ; Board of Compensation
created ; some provision for building lines.

There was no further general revision of the charter until that of 1897-1900,
but it cannot be .said that it was left at rest. In the years from 1881 to 1900,
no less than eighty distinct amendments and special laws were attached to the
charter. Thorough revision of such a mass was inevitable, and it is readily con-
ceded by all good .indges that the revision which went into effect in 1900 was
needed and was a material step toward modern city government. It was a little
too early, however, to participate in the radical advance in charter construction
which has affected many cities of the country. Even if tha^t era had come in,
New Haven's natural conservatism, probably, would have kept it back.

The amendment period preceding this revision was not without materially
important legislation. In 1883 there was an annexation to the Town of New
Haven, so as to include that part of Springside (the new almshouse farm) which
had belonged to the town of Hamden, and compensation to the latter therefor.
There was other special legislation concerning the Town Farm. In 1884 the city
was authorized to straighten the channel of West River from Derby Avenue tp
the gi'cat bend above the old Derby railroad. This made for a river wliicli orig-
inally was painfully crooked, a practically straight channel from a point north
of Whalley Avenue to Oak Street, and a symmetrically curved one from there
on to the great bend. It was also at that time provided that no sewer must empty
into it except storm overflows.

In 1885 there was provision for the biennial election of two members of the
Board of Public Works, police commissioner and fire conunissioner. The next
year the Public Library was established, with an appropriation of $10,000. In
1887 a special law made the newly straightened channel of the West River the

104 A MODERN HISTORY OF NEW HAVEN

boundary line of the city, also the l)oiindary line between the towns of New
Haven and Orange from Derby Avenue to the Derby railroad. In 1889 New
Haven was authorized to issue $200,000 park bonds, and Town Park commission
was created — the new parks were outside of city limits. The same year Benja-
min R. English, James Rice Winchell and Henry C. "White were appointed a
committee to investigate the affairs of the Town of New Haven, and report at
the next town uK^eting. ]More evidence, perhaps, of the unsatisfactory dual
civic personality.

Apparently there was another raise of city salaries in 1893 — anyway, the
schedule was revised. Soon after it seemed best to limit the right to hold office
in the City Court to those living within city limits. That same year there was
legi-slation petitioning the Superior Court to condemn the toll rights on the
Derby Turnpike. In 1893, also, the city was authorized to provide and main-
tain a Contagious Disease Hospital — but it was not until almost twenty years
later that the long fight as to where to place it let up sufficiently to allow New
Haven to get the hospital.

A civil service commission was created in 1895, and for several years per-
mitted to pretend to be of some use in protecting New Haven officeholdei's
against politics. Here the revision of 1881 was so amended that the Board of
Public Works, the police and fire commissioners, were elected by the freemen
instead of by the aldermen. The same year the amendment consolidating the
Town and City of New Haven, to be referred to later, was first tried. It did
not "take" until two years later, at the second trial in 1897.

The revision of 1897 consisted of 204 sections, and was a complete and in
some respects radical change. Following the consolidation, it provided for three
new wards to include the annexed districts, increasing the total to fifteen. Both
this and the revision of 1899, which was in a sense one with it, retained the Com-
mon ( 'ouneil of one alderman and three councilmen, elected annually, from each
Avard. The former gave the mayor considerable appointive power, as to corpora-
tion counsel, sealer of weights and measures, citizen members of the Board of
Finance, Police and Fire Commissioners, Director of Public Works, Park Com-
mission. Health Board, Public Library Directors, Board of Education and Civil
Service Board. But as the revision of 1S99 is the one of importance, and the
one now in effect, that is the only one which need he further considered here.
Jt contained 227 sections.

The same radical change in appointive power of the mayor was continued,
with some enlargements. The date of the city election was changed to April.
The Boards of Finance, Police and Fire Service and Public Works were re-
tained, the last to be divided into bureaus of streets, sewers, engineering and
compensation. Parks, Public Health, Public Lilirary and Education were de-
partments, as was Charities and Correction. The Civil Service Board was re-
tained. Town clerk and registrar of Vital Statistics, along with the Board of
Relief and Board of Assessors, the la.st appointed by the mayor, were inherited
from the town government. The r<'vision of 1897 provided that a woman might
be appointed to the Board of Education, and this was not altered in 1899.

AND EASTERN NEW HAVEN COUNTY 105

The most important amendment, save one, to this last charter was that in
1901 which abolished the Board of Couneilmen and provided tliat on tlie first
Tuesday of April in 1902 there should be elected six aldermen at large, and
thereafter every second year six aldermen at large for two yeai-s, and that the
odd-numbered wards should elect one alderman and the even-numbered wards
one alderman every other year for a tenn of two years.

The Permanent Pavement Connnission, whose fi\-e members the mayor ap-
points, was created in 1901. A Connnission on Public ^Memorials was created in
1905. The same year the date of election was changed from April to the first
Mondaj' in October, where it has remained undisturbed for several elections. It
was in 1911 that the Park Commission was given jurisdiction over the Green
and all other public squares.

The most important recent cliarter change was the Home Rule Bill, which
was enacted in 1913.

II •

The bugbear of a generation was the dual and diiYering constitution of New
Haven the town and New Haven the city. From 17S4 until three-quarters of
a century later there was little dififieulty. But as soon as the population had
completely overflowed to the towai, there began to be troulile. It was the worse
because of the comparatively small area of the part of the town around the
edges of the city. Had the town area of New Haven been great, as is the ca.se
with many Connecticut towns containing cities, the crisis would not have come
so early, but it would have arrived soon or late. The people living and owning
property in the town outside of city limits wanted, of course, all the city privi-
leges, improvements and advantages. But they did not pay city taxes or their
equivalent, and of course the city could not permit them to have these things.
The result was constant and growing friction.

Then there was a conflict and expense of officials. The town claimed a sort
of jurisdiction over the city, or at least some of the officials of the town neces-
sarily had functions in the city. There was double cost and not a little confusion
at elections. These were only a few of the disadvantages of a system which,
being now of the past, may well be forgotten. Yet it took a good many years,
and some patient work on the part of public men and public bodies, the Cham-
ber of Commerce notable among the latter, to bring about the long agitated
desideratum of consolidation. A well constructed bill was passed by the Legis-
lature in 1895, but it was not acceptable to the majority of the voters on sub-
mission. There were only a few minor changes, however, in the act sulimitted
in 1897, and this time it was accepted.

Consolidation consisted, of course, in making the boundaries of the ('ity of
New Haven coterminous with wlmt had been the Town of New Haven. The
duties as to highways, private ways, bridges and sewers which the town had
borne were transferred to the city. A Department of Charities and Correction

106 A MODEEN HISTORY OF NEW HAVEN

of four members, appointed b.y the Board of Aldermen (later by the mayor),
took over that portion of the town's duties. The town officials retained, most of
them required by stat^ law, W'ere three selectmen, town clerk, tax collector,
registrar of Vital Statistics, Board of Assessors, Board of Relief, justices of the
peace, grand jurors and constables. The property formerly held by the town
was vested in the city. There was, however, this peculiarity, that the Westville
school district, the South school distriet and the Borough of Fair Haven East
were kept intact. But the cherished old town meeting wa.s, so far as New Haven
was concerned, at an end.

The second and successful eou.solidatioii bill had a few additions of compara-
tively minor importance. It was accepted by a safe majority, and if everybody
has not been happy ever since, the years have brought increasing satisfaction
with the change, until the younger generation of voters finds it hard to conceive
that there ever was a separation between city and town. Yet there are the still
independent units of Westville and Fair Haven East to mar the perfection of
con.solidation. and the city is steadily growing into them. Recently there has
been a revival of effort for complete consolidation, and there are those who
believe that it is near.

In the first 130 ycHi's during which New Haven wa.s faithfully and constantly
and hopefully amending and revising its charter, it was necessary on each occa-
sion to go to the General AssemWy either in the State House on the Green or
at Hartford, explain all about it and secure the consent of the majority to the
change. There were two ways of looking at this exercise. Some regarded it as
one of the greatest of winter sports to get the charter amended ; others believed
that the matter of altering municipal laws to meet changing municipal needs
was a matter of home business about which Hartford — where of late years it
was always necessary to apply — had no concern. And when at the last it some-
times became necessary to do some expert political bargaining to obtain the'
most innocent and obvious charter change, the number grew of those who be-
lieved that New Haven ought to have home rule.

There was talk of this for years, which came to little result. The thing
seemed like a more or le.ss elusive dream, pleasant to entertain, but not expected
to turn to any reality. However, there was a growing feeling that New Haven
could have home rule if it insisted. At any rate, William S. Pardee, a member
of the General Assembly of 1913, determined to make a trial. He drew up a
concise and, as he believed, comprehensive home rule bill of five sections, con-
ferring on the freemen of New Haven the right to amend the charter of their
city by initiative and referendum, without the advice or consent of the General
Assembly. The bill went through on May 17, 1915, after a delay of over a ses-
sion, and considerable doctoring of his second and essential section

By this act it was provided that the Board of Aldermen or 30 per cent
or more of the registered voters might initiate charter changes, to be voted
upon by the electors at a special election. As passed, the act defined the powers
of amendment under it as follows:

AND EASTERN NEW HAVEN COUNTY 107

''To provide the iiianner in which candidates fur th<? office of mayor or foi-
any otlier office required by law to be filled by popular election may be nomi-
nated for their respective ofifice,s, and that no pei-son unless nominated in accord-
ance with such provisions shall be eligrible to such office.

"To provide whether the mayor or any oth^r officer rei|uired to be elected
by popular vote, shall be elected by plurality of votes cast, by cumulative voting,
or in case of boards constituted of more than one member, by minority repre-
sentation.

"To provide how the Board of Aldermen shall be constituted, tht- numlier
of its members, their qualitieations, tenure and terms of office, and for the elec-
tion of any part or all of them at large or by wards, and the amount of their
salaries or compensation, if any.

"To provide that any officer of said city, now elected by popular vote, shall
be chosen by appointment, excepting that the mayor, members of the Board of
Aldermen, town clerk, members of the Board of Selectmen, registrars of voters,
and justices of the peace shall continue to be elected by popular vote.

"To provide how, by whom, when and in what manner any of the officer.s,
boards, directors, commissioners and emploj^es of said city who are or may be
subject to appointment and not to popular election, may be appointed, their
qualifications, the tenns and conditions of the tenure of each.

"To provide for the payment of .salaries or compensation of any officers of
said city who are subject to appointment, and the amount of such salaries or
compensation, or to provide by whom such salaries or compensation shall be
determined and regulated.

"To provide that the powers and duties given to or imposed upon any of the
commissioners, boards, agents or employes of said city shall be exercised and
performed by any other officer, board, agent or employe, including the power
of appointing and employing other officers, agents and employes, excepting that
the powers and duties, other than the power of appointment as herein otherwise
authorized, of the mayor or Board of Aldermen, shall not be curtailed under the
procedure authorized by this act, nor .shall the powers and duties of the town
clerk. Board of Selectmen, registrars of voters, or justices of the peace, be in
any respect curtailed.

"To provide for the abolition of any office, the powers and duties of which
shall be transferred to another officer, board or agent, and to provide for any
new department, bureau or officer as may seem best for the exercise of the [low-
ers and to perform the duties given to or imposed upon said city.

"To provide that the mayor shall act as a member of the Board of Aldermen;
that any or all of the powers and duties which might be exercised and performed
by appointive officers, boards or agents may be exercised and perfonned by the
Board of Aldermen in such manner as it may determine, either directly or
through such agents as it may select or for whose selection it may provide.

"To provide for a general revision of the charter which may include any
of the amendments heroin authorized.

108 A MODERN HISTORY OF NEW HAVEN

"To provide for pensions and pension funds for any class of employes of
said city, and to apportion to any pension fund or to the general city income
any license moneys payable to the city or to any pension fund."

For the rest, the act provided that no amendment aft'ecting' the City Court
could be passed, nor any affecting the duties of town clerk, assessors, registrar
of Vital .Statistics or other officer whose office or duties are fixed by general
statute.

Ill

Within a few years after the revision of the charter which became effective
in 1900. the modern city charter wave began to sweep the country. Commission
government was commending itself to an increasing number of the cities of
the country, albeit attended with much luxuriance of the initiative and the
referendvuii, and much utter nonsense of the recall. A little later there were
still newer features, such as the City Manager or Mayor ^Manager plan of con-
ducting the business of a city. They made New Haven's recently adopted
charter, improvement though it was, appear out of date to some of the citizens.

Yet suggestions that there ought to be a further and really radical change
appeared not to waken a great amount of enthusiasm. As early as 1910 Judge
A. MeClellan Mathewson made some tentative experiments with a chai-ter of his
own designing, but did not secure encouraging results. But the demand per-
sisted, from some quarters, that New Haven make another attempt at charter
improvement. It became so positive in 1915 that JIayor Rice appointed a Com-
mittee of Fifty to see about charter revision. That committee, after holding
several meetings in the spring, and choosing a sub-committee on charter con-
struction, made a report in June suggesting a moderate number of essential
changes in the charter.

The first of these amended the section of the charter providing for the election
by ballot of city officers, by striking out the treasurer, clerk, collector and city
sheriff, and providing that the.se persons should continue in office until their
successors were chcsen, or they were duly removed for cause. It was provided
that whenever there should be a vacancy in any of the offices the mayor should
have power to appoint from a list provided by the Civil Service Board. It was
further provided that a banking corporation or trust company might be ap-
pointed to the office of treasurer.

The second suggested change was the aliolition of the ward aldermen, and
the election of eight aldermen at large, four each two year.s, with minority
representation. Of this board the mayor should be a member ex-r)fficio, but
might not vote except to dissolve a tie.

The third proposed change was the removal of political reijuii-ements in
ap]iointment to the Board of Finance — that is, the best men might be chosen
without inquiring as to how they were accustomed to vote.

The fourth recommendation abolished the Board of Police and Fire Com-
missioners, making the chief in each ease the responsible head, the same to

AND EASTERN NEW HAVEN COUNTY 109

be appointed by the mayor from a list of names suggested by the Civil Service
Board. In conueetion with this there was some detailed legislation concerning
the powers of the heads of these departments and the government of the de-
partments and their finances.

Fifth, the report proposed a radically new method of nominating and electing
mayor. Candidates might be nominated bj* petition, and the choice made by
preferential voting. The plan was interesting, but as it did not then come
into civic being, is not important in this consideration.

These recommendations were duly submitted to the aldermen. That board
passed the second, third, fourth and fifth without change. It saw fit to add
to the continuing officers recommended in the first that of controller so that the
treasurer, clerk, collector, city sheriff and controller holding ofSce on December
31, 1917. should be continued in office. Then the aldermen proceeded to some
charter revision of their own. First, they adopted an act concerning the pension-
ing of members of the fire department. Second, they proposed to make the con-
troller a general purchasing agent. And third, though it had been re-submitted
by a committee of their own body, the aldermen refused, nine to eight, to submit
to the people an amendment consolidating the offices of director of public works
and city engineer. This amendment the mayor had been seeking to get through
for several years, and it had once been refused by the voters.

The mayor vetoed the list of recommendations in toto. It was not, as he
sought to explain, because he failed to appreciate the work of the Committee of
Fifty, or because he disapproved of all the amendments. The first failed of his
approval because it did not provide for any passing by the Civil Service Board
on the qualifications of the men then holding office, who must, by the provisions,
be continued. In the second place, he held that the provision that the mayor
must appoint the chiefs of the police and fire departments from a list ofl'ered by
the Civil Service Board limited his power. He objected to the proposed manner
of electing mayor because, on his information, it conflicted with state law. Hence
he thought it best to refer the whole list of amendments back to the Committee
of Fifty.

It was not so referred, liowever. The Connnittee of Fifty, as such, pi'esently
went out of existence. It consisted of a body of earnest men, but it was so large
as to be unwieldy. As it seemed best not to abandon the effort to reconstruct
the charter, the mayor in 1916 appointed a "Committee of Fifteen," practically
all of whom had been members of the previous committee, to approach the task
again. The members of this committee were:

Leonard M. Daggett, who was made chairman : Eliot Watrous. who became

secretary ; Clarence Blakeslee, George W. Crawford, Yandell Henderson, Everett

G. Hill, Charles F. Julin, Harry C. Knight, Patrick F. O'Meara, William S.

• Pardee, Frederick L. Perry, Matthew A. Reynolds, Isaac JI. Ullman, Anthony

Verdi and Kenneth Wynne.

This committee went to work with less of confidence, perhaps, that the time
was ripe for radical charter revision than with the determination to find out

110 A MODERN HISTORY OF NEW HAVEN

something of what the city really needed and the people of it earnestly wanted.
As a preliminary, a public hearing, well advertised, was held, to which the
people were urged to come with their views on charter amendment. The result
was not, either in attendance or in views, highly encouraging or illuminating to
the committee. So far as time would permit, all those present were given op-
portunity to speak their minds fully. The number was not large, and the sug-
gestions given were not especially constructive.

Then the committee tried another tack. This was the invitation to its
sessions, one at a time, of the experienced heads of the various city departments.
The result was considerable first hand information to the committee, though not
a unanimous opinion as to the directions which amendment should take, or that
it should take any. But the majority opinion of the committee at first was that
there should be certain material changes, embodying in part those reported by
the previous Committee of Fifty. There had been, however, considerable inci-
dental discussion of the recommendation of a comini.ssion charter, or of the
City Manager or Mayor Manager plan. Several of the members were much in
favor of this, and none was strongly opposed to it. though there was not full
agreement as to the foi-m. The majority, however, were favorable to either the
ilayor Manager or th<^ City Manager form. But it was the belief of those most
conversant with the home rule act that it did not permit so radical a change in
charter without appeal to Hartford, since it said : ' ' Excepting that the mayor
* * * shall continue to be elected by popular vote." And again: "Ex-
cepting that the powers and duties of the Mayor or Board of Aldermen shall
not be curtailed under the procedure authorized by this act."

In the end it was agreed, first that it was not advisable to recommend minor
charter changes at this time ; second, that when the time for a radically changed
charter was ripe, it was desirable that the question be submitted to the people,
and that precedent to such action, it was necessary to so amend the Home Rule
Act as to permit the adoption, if the people should see fit, of a Mayor Manager or
City Manager charter. And with the appointment of a committee to secure
such an amendment, the Committee of Fifteen closed its labors for 1916. The
General Assembly of 1917 passed the amendment desired.

CHAPTER XIV
NEW HAVEN'S CHURCHES*

THE ORIGINAL CHURCH AND ITS DESCENDANTS THE REPRESENTATIVES OF THE

CHURCH OP ENGLAND AND THE GROWTH OF ITS FORM OF WORSHIP IN
A NEW ENGLAND CITY

"On this rook will I liuild," said John Davenport by his actions at tlie
beginning of New Haven, "not my chureii, for the church is that rock, but my
whole state." The first institution of New Haven was the church. It was nanu^d
before the town was nanu^d. Davenport and his tired voyagers had no time,
when first they left their boats at the head of creek navigation, to think about
permanent shelter, and there was not much food about which to think. But
this did not deter them from using that first Sabbath day for religious worship.
That oak tree which .stood near where College Street now joins with George was
as important in its way, and should have been as carefully preserved in historical
depiction, as the Charter Oak at Hartford. It long ago succumbed to the wintry
blasts, and the best reminder we have of it is its idealization in stained glass
in the chancel window of Center Church. That window scene represents the.
company of pilgrims grouped about Pastor Davenport under the oak on that
first Sunday in the New Haven part of the New World. It is a depiction of the
foundation that underlies all New Haven.

In 280 years New Haven has changed, in outwai'd appearance, as much as has
that place where the oak tree stood. A decade ago the observer who .stood
at the southeast corner of the Green on a summer Sunday and watched the
multitudes crowding the cars on their way, not to the churches, but to Savin
Rock or Lighthouse Point, to the numberless cottages and resorts which line the
east or the west shore, to woods or mountains in various directions, or who noted
the endless stream of pleasure motor vehicles on their way anywhere but to the
house of worship, might have said in his haste that the ilay of the supremacy of
the church had passed. There were those who read in the polyglot constitution
of a great part of New Haven's population the story of a churchless people, of

* Tn this and the following cliapter thf I'hiirehes of New Haven have been treateil as
nearly as possible in the chronologieal order of their foundation, without discrimination of
creed, race or color.

Ill

112 A MODERN HISTORY OF NEW HAVEN

a eoutineutal Sunday. The iufereuce was that those who have come from all
parts of the world will seek freedom from all sorts of religious as well as gov-
ernmental repression, and will achieve a license as to the former which will for-
ever end the day of the church's preeminence, even in the New Haven of John
Davenport.

It was not so. The man who today really observes New Haven knows that
it is not so. To count the "unchurched," as it is superficially the habit to
class them, is to get only the negative side of the case. The positive side is
found in the number, the growth, the vigor, and more than aU the obvious fruits,
of the churches of New Haven. These evidences never were as impressive as
today, and careful examination and weighing of the work which the churches
are doing and promoting materially strengthens them. The serious mind of this
particular time is evident in New Haven, and those who note the many ways in
which the community is rising to its duty and opportunity, and seek the causes
of this public mood, find that, after all, New Haven is and has ever been founded
where Davenport placed it, sciuarely on the church.

There are eighty-eight churches in New Haven, counting all wliich follow in
any degree the manner of New Haven's church traditions. There are others
which call themselves churches, and we should hesitate to question their claim.
In this day when we believe we see

"Books in the running brooks,

Sermons in stones and good in everything"

thoughtful persons are less inclined to deny the virtues of any earnest, forward
and upward looking body of believers or worshippers. The times are past when
anybody doubted that there was room in New Haven for aU. Perhaps we
ought to increase the number of religious communions in the city to about a
hundred.

Considerable space has already been given in these pages to the ancient and
modern phases of that first church which Davenport founded. It has maintained
its place in the life of New Haven, the center in reality as well as in name, of
its religion as well as its civics. It has been served, since John Davenport and
James Pierpont, by a long and distinguished line of men of power and vision.
It is not the purpose, either with tliis or witli most of the other churches to be
mentioned, to trace that line down tlie years. So we find in Center Cliurch pulpit,
in the more than half a century following 1825, the clistingi;ished tlieologian,
preacher and teacher Rev. Dr. Leonard Bacon. His pastorate of fifty-six years
was one of the most notable of the past century, even in a land of long pastorates.
But almost as notable in its way was that which followed it, of Dr. Newman
Smyth. Of old New England stock and ]\Iaine origin, lie liad his college course
at Bnwdoin, then his baptism of war in 1864 and 1865. As a veteran and a first
lieutenant he took his divinity course, and after Rhode Island, Maine and Illinois
pastorates — the last in the Presbyterian ministry — he came to the historic pulpit.
His place in the community of New Haven and among the theologians of the

CENTER elll'KeH ox THE (.KEEX, NEW HAVEN

AND EASTERN NEW HAVEN COUNTY 113

century has been all his own, and there is no need to compare it with liis pred-
ecessors or his contemporaries. He needed not to make Center Church a place
of fame, for it was already that, l)ut he made it a place beloved by all the people
of New Haven, and by thousands of the men who were temporarily residents
of the city. It was in his pastorate that the vesper services, at 4 o'clock ou
Sunday afternoons, were established. They soon became characteristic of the
church. There was something seemingly above earth in the experience of sitting
for an hour under the influence of the atmosphere of worship, the words of the
seer and the charm of the music, which had its lasting effect on multitudes in the
passing years. Dr. Smyth made, in the quarter of a century while he actively
served the church, an impression for uplift that was not at all confined to its
members. It was a community service, and more.

That was the word which the pastor passed on to his successor who came in
1909, the Rev. Oscar Edward Maurer. He had a l)urning sense of the mission of
this church to the whole community. He expanded in various ways the reach of
Center Church to all New Haven. He is a man of deep consecration, high
vision and the finest personal charm. His place iu New Haven outside the
church has been, without the least weakening of loyalty to his own people, an
enviable one. Almost a decade of his service in every good work has left his
mark on New Haven as a man of power and a brother of devotion, an impression
not in the least diminished by his throwing of himself into war service when the
opportunity came. He was for two years a member of the Second Regiment of
the Wisconsin National Guard, and in 1910 was made chaplain of the Second
Company, Governor's Foot Guard at New Haven. He could not resist the urge
of the great war. In 1917 he entered the service of the Young Men's Christian
Association at Camp Meade, and the following year he went in the same service
to France.

The one church of John Davenport has grown, in the course of 280 years,
to fifteen churches of its faith and order, so that New Haven is regarded &s one
of the centers of Congregationalism. The oldest next to Center, having its place
of worship on the Green, is the United, or, as it was known in former years, the
North Church, with reference to its location. Still further back than that, it
was the Fair Haven Church, so named for reasons which require a little reference
to the earlier history.

For a little more than a century the church of Davenport had reigned alone.
That a second church was formed in 1742 is less surprising than that the .350
persons who landed with Davenport had grown to nearly 5,000 without forming
another church. That was when the White Haven Church was founded. It
seems to have gathered some independfent spirits, so independent that they could
not wholly agree, for in 1769 there was a secession, and the Fair Haven Church
was formed. This had nothing to do with the district of the town since known
as Fair Haven, but referred to a name by which some were at one time disposed
to call New -Haven. But the divided elements were reunited in 1796. and the
beginning of the United Church was made. It was for some time thereafter,

Vnl. I S

114 A MODERN HISTORY OF NEW HAVEN

however, known as the Fair Haven Society. For some decades previous to 1815
the building used was what was known as the "Blue Meeting House.'' A sort
of pale blue seems at that time to have been a favorite color for painting some .
buildings. The union wliieh made this the United Church, superseding the
common appellation North Church, was formed by the addition of the Third
Church in 1884. The present edifice, one of the finest types of the New England
church architecture of that period, was completed in 1815.

Before that time some notable men served the White Haven and Fair Haven
congregations, the most famous of them being the Rev. Jonathan Edwards the
younger, who was pastor in the days of the Revolutionary War. The Rev. Sam-
uel IMerwin was pastor in 1812, and was the moving spirit in the starting of the
building which for over a century has stood at the north side of the Green. A
break of a little more than half a century from his pastorate brings us to the
Rev. Dr. Theodore Thornton Munger, for fifteen years preacher and teacher of
this church and through it of a country-wide audience, one of the giants of the
church in the closing years of the nineteenth century. He was a plain man of
simple humanity, something of a Puritan, it may lie, but a supernally clear
thinker and practical theologian. In the community of New Haven his |>o\ver
was beyond computation. He was one of the seers of our time, and even nt)w
it is impossible, for lack of adequate perspective, to appreciate the greatness of
the work he did.

There was a brief pastorate following, the intensity of whose personality, and
the tragedy of whose ending, took deep hold on the hearts of the people of the
church and of New Haven. Rev. Artemas Jean Haynes came, as so many of
the recently called pastors of New Haven have done, from service in the West,
though he was in New England when his call reached liim. For seven, years he
grew into the hearts of the people of New Haven through his church and com-
muity work. His great .soul was too broth'erly, too sensitive to human need, to
resist any appeal for the wonderful help he could give by his earnest counsel,
his helpful presence or his eloquent words. He bore up well under the burden.s
he carried, however, only to mysteriously meet his death by drowning in a Cape
Cod lake in the summer of 1908.

Since 1909 the church has been served by the Rev. Robert C. Denison, who
came from Janesville, Wis. He has worthily followed the path of service, both
of the church and community, trod by his predecessors. Many are the calls on
the time and effort of the pastor of the Ignited Church, sometimes seemingly
more than a less than superman can meet, but Mr. Denison spares not himself.
A man of fine sympathies, of clear vision, of devoted purpose, he is making a
place in the heart of a city of great opportunities which will give him something
more enduring than fame.

The third constituent member of the United Church, the Third Congrega-
tional, was the next of the churches of this denomination to be formed in New
Haven. In 1815 the three churches on the Green (Trinity making the third)
were the only churches in New Haven. But in the ten years following there was

UNITED CHURai. NEW HAVEX. ORGANIZED IN 1742

AND EASTERN NEW HAVEN COUNTY 115

a considerable growth of population at the eastern side of the city. Wooster
Square had just been laid out, and it seemed to the Congregationalists that there
was need for a rhureh in that section. So the Third churcli was orgaiiized, and
until it could get on its feet, met in the Orange Street lecture room of Center
Church. This was in 1826, and soon after a building was erected at the corner
of Chapel and Union streets. The Rev. X. W. Taylor, D. D., a professor in the
Yale Divinity School, supplied as pastor for the first few years, but the Rev.
Dr. Elisha Lord Cleaveland was the first pastor, from 1833 to 1866. Somehow
the vicinity of Wooster Square did not at that time prove a favorable spot for
Congregationalism, for the congregation abandoned its building to the stock-
holders (along with the debt) and came up to worship in Saunders" Hall at the
corner of Chapel and Orange streets about 1839. Then they built again, on
Court Street, the building which about 1856 we find occupied by the Jewish
Congregation Mishkan Israel. For the church seems to have prospered better
for a time in its uptown location, and thought it must have a better site. It
secured the money to build again in 1845 the edifice on Church Street, betv^-een
Chapel and Court, which, abandoned by the Third Church in 1884, was after-
ward for some years used as a public library, and was, after lieing given up by
that institution, torn down to make room for the Second National Bank
Building.

But there were too many churches of the same denomination around the im-
mediate center of New Haven, and th<> residence area was moving away from
the Green. So the Thiril Church did not find ade(|uate support in its newest
location, and after some decades of unsncressful struggle gave it up. There was
room for those of its members who still wished a central place of worship in the
North Church, and the union was made in 1884. Rev. Stephen 1>. Dcnnen, D.
D., was its last pastor, from 1875 to 1884.

There was a minority in the Third church, when its comparatixely m-w build-
ing at Chapel and Union streets was abandoned, who still held to the lielief that
the city needed a church in the Wooster Square district. After a year or two
they managed to get control of the building, and renamed it the Chapel Street
Church. This was the beginning of the Church of the Redeemer, which grew
to be one of New Haven's strongest Congregational churches, but not in the
Woostei- Square section. It was aliout 1869 when, after having been served for
brief terms by a number of pastors, this church sought what was then a com-
paratively new portion of the city, the corner of Orange and Wall streets. There
it completed a new building, from the size and excellence of which one must
.iudge the church to have had considerable financial strength at the time. The
year after the new church was completed the Rev. John E. Todd came to be its
pastor, and for twenty years, from 1870 to 1890, with a short break when failing
health forced his temporary retirement, he took a leading place among thp pas-
tors of New Haven, and gave his church a like standing in the city.

In 1890, when Dr. Todd finally resigned the pastorate, the i-liui'di made
another popular and progressive move by calling the Rev. Watson Lyman Rhil-

116 A ilODERN HISTORY OF NEW HAVEN

lips, who was destined for the next (iiiartcr of a century to be one of the powers
in the Congregational pulpits of New Haven. Masterly as a preacher, earnest
and aggressive as a worker, and an energetic participant in every form of gen-
eral eomnnmity activity. Dr. Phillips won and held a high place in the esteem
of all the people of the city. He resigned from the pa.storate at the end of 1915.

This church also, in the latter years of Dr. Phillips's pastorate, had felt the
expansion urge. The church population was expanding; the churches had i-e-
mained centralized. The Church of the Redeemer, in a distinctly central loca-
tion, felt need for the support of those who had moved nearer the edges of the
city. So its members resolved to begin their next pastorate in a new field. Pur-
chasing a property at the corner of Whitney Avenue and Cold Spring Street,
they made plans for the immediate l)uilding of a temporary parish house in
which to worship until they could complete a new edifice, and called to their
pulpit the Rev. Roy M. Houghton, who took up the work in 1916. He ener-
getically attacked the task of reconstruction, and by the end of 1917 he had seen
the $90,000 for the building of the parish house part of the new church equip-
ment practically all pledged. Then he felt the urge of the great strife across
the seas, and applied for a release from his duties to take effect April 1, 1918,
so that he might join the growing group of New Haven pastors who were serving
the army in France. The church reluctantly, though patriotically, granted the
release.

The building which the Church of the Redeemer occupied for nearly fifty
years, at the corner of Orange and Wall streets, was in 1916 sold to the Trinity
German Lutheran Church whose place of worship was formerly on lower George
Street.

There were from early times a few colored people of the Congregational
faith in New Haven. For a long time these were included in the membership
of the United Church, but about 1829, their number having grown to a respecta-
ble strength, they chose to have a church of their own. This was at first the
Temple Street Church, and had its building, which some time since disappeared,
on Temple Street south of the Green. There the Rev. Simeon E. Joeelyn served
the people from 1829 to 1836, and was followed by the Rev. Amos G. Beeman.
The Rev. Andrew P. :Miller was pastor from 1885 to 1896. In 1902 the Rev.
Edward F. Coin came to the pastorate, and has remained until now, having won
by Ids high spirit of devotion, his earnest and able woi'k and liis admirable char-
acter a high place, not only in the hearts of his people, but of all who know him
in New Haven. It ceased some time ago, however, to be the Temple Street
Church. The center of the colored population of the city some years since
became Dixwell Avenue and its vicinity, and in 1886 this congi'egation built on
the lower part of Dixwell Avenue, and became the Dixwell Avenue Congrega-
tional Church.

Tlie Fair Haven Chun-h that was named after the Village of Fair Haven,
now the Grand Avenue Congregational Church, was founded in 1830, the out-
growth of the natural demand of the j^eople of that part of the town for their

AND EASTEKN NEW HAVEN COUNTY 117

own place of religious worship. It erected its own building, and soon grew to
a strong church. Its present dignitied aud ample edifice, dating from 1854,
sufficiently testifies that as early as that it was able to command considerable
resources. Its first pastor was the Rev. John Mitchell, who remained from 1830
to 1836. Rev. B. L. Swan served the church for the next nine years. Then suc-
ceeded the notable pastorate of the Rev. Burdett Hart, whose eminence and abil-
ity gave the church a first rank among the bodies of its order in New Haven.
He was pastor from 1846 to 1890, and was succeeded by the Rev. James Lee
Jlitchell, just out of Harvard, young aud decidedly original in his ways. His
was a vigorous and popular pastorate, and especially won the young people. It
closed in 1901. The Rev. Isaiah W. Sneath came to the church in 1904, and for
eight years was the beloved and successful leader of this growing congregation.
He was succeeded in 1912 by the Rev. WiUiani C. Prentiss, a young man of
devotion and power, who has ably carried on the growing woi'k in this important
portion of the town.

The year 1831 dates the organization of a church whieli, though small in its
beginnings aud for .some years inconspicuous in the fellowship, was destined to
have an important part in the later religious development of the city. There
are none living now who remember the ilission Church, as it was calletl. which
started with twelve meniljcrs. who met in the Orange Street lecture room of
Ceuter Cluirch. The develo])nient of this congregation was, however, rapid.
The following year it had changed its uame to the "Free Church," not, it seems,
in any spirit of rebellion against the established churches. By 1833 the member-
ship had increased to fifty-two, aud having outgi'owu the lecture room, it had
moved to Exchange Hall, at the corner of Church aud Chapel streets, for wor-
ship. There the people remained for three years, until they could complete
their fii-st house of worship, on Church Street, near George. When they went
to that in 1836, they changed their name to the Church Street Church.

That building the congi-egatiou used for twelve years, but it seems not to
have wholly sufficed. For the congregation steadily grew, so that a new aud
larger edifice on College Street was planned. This was the College Street
Church, and this name the organization took when it moved there in 1848. For
half a century the church remained in that building, prospering and doing a
valuable work in the upbuilding of New Haven. There had been a varied suc-
cession of pastors. There were several "acting pastors" from 1831 to 1837,
hut the fii-st "settled pa.stor, " who came that year, was the Rev. Henn- G. Lud-
low. He remained until 1842. The Rev. Edward Strong, D. D., in his time one
of the influential pastors of the city, was settled over the church from 1842 to
1862. The Rev. Orpheus T. Lauphear, who succeeded him, remained only from
1864 to 1867. and for two years following the church was without a settled pas-
tor. The Rev. James W. Hubbell, who was installed in 1869, remained until
1876. He was succeeded by the Rev. Henry S. Kelsey, who was an "acting
pastor" for the eight years.

In 1884, with the iiistiillatioii of the Rev. William W. :\rcLane, the church

118 A MODERN HISTORY OF NEW HAVEN

entered on its modem period. He was to remain with it for over a quarter of a
century, and in his time, and largely due to his progressive influence, impor-
tant changes were to come to the church. It was soon after he came that the
centrifugal population movement in New Haven really began. There were more
churches within a quarter of a mile of the Green than there had ever been ; there
began to be fewer people. Dr. McLane was not long in seeing the point. He
foresaw an inevitable change in the location of the church. The population of
the character which this church served was growing westward. The progressive
church must go in that direction. The short of it was that when, in 1898, Yale
University made the College Street Church a handsome offer for its building.
Doctor McLano urged its acceptance, and the majority of his congregation
agreed with him. That building, used by Yale for the next twenty years as Col-
lege Street Hall, was disposed of by the University when its new building for
the School of ^lusic, at the corner of College and ^Yall streets, was completed
in 1917.

Meanwhile, the College Street Church had purchased a site at the corner of
Chapel Street and Sherman Avenue, and proceeded to build, on the rear of it,
a parish house. There it worshipped until the church, tlie corner stone of which
was laid on the 1st day of January, 1901, was completed. AYith this completion,
or before, the church changed its name to Plymouth Church, and its growth in
the new location and new building was rapid. Doctor ^IcLane resigned the pas-
torate at the end of 1910, and the Rev. Orville A. Petty was called in the fal-
lowing year. He proved an attractive and progi'essive pastor, and the church
continued to grow rapidly. In 191.5, when the Connecticut National Guard was
called to the itexiean border, he was appointed chaplain of the Second Regi-
ment. Returning after four months' leave of absence from his pulpit, he re-
mained with the church until the summer of 1916, when he was made chaplain
of the 102d Regular Regiment which was created out of the First and Second
regiments of Connecticut Infantry. He is now with the regiment, somewhere
in France. His congregation parted from him with deep regret, — for he had
become greatly beloved in his six years of service, — but in a patriotic spirit of
sacrifice. He was given indefinite leave of absence, and his salai-y partially con-
tinued. The Rev. James S. "Williamson became acting pastor.

There was no Congregational Church in Westville until 1832, though some
time before this there must have been a strong settlement of church-going people
on that side of the West River. Up to then, however, they had followed the rural
custom of "driving in" to church, probably to the Green. The Rev. Joseph E.
Bray was the first pastor, from 1832 to 1834. After him the pulpit was "sup-
plied" for the next eight years. From 1842 to 1846 Rev. Judson A. Root served
the church, and then there were three years of supplies. In 1849 the Rev.
Samuel H. Elliott came to the church, and was its pastor until 1855, when
he Avas succeeded by the Rev. James L. Willard, who made this church notable
for one of the long pastorates of New Haven. He was a native of Madison,
a man of tliorough learning, a powerful preacher and a beloved pastor. He made

BENEDICT ME.MOIUAL I'HESHVTEKIAX (HI KIH. XKW HAVEN

AND EASTERN NEW HAVEN COUNTY 119

this eluirch iu "Westville oue of the first-rauk churches of New Haven. Ad-
vanced years caused his retirement iu 1893, after a pastorate of forty-eight
years. The pulpit was filled in the following decade by Rev. 0. R. Howe and
Rev. Henry Davies. Then, in 1903, came the Rev. Frederick L. Davis, who
remained until 1908. The present pastor, the Rev. Clair F. Luther, came to
the fhureh the same year, and has ably maintained and advanced its traditions
and service. In a large way he has been a part of New Haven's civic
as well as religious life, and has always been found willing to aid in every
community effort. To his own people he has been a faithful pastor, whose fine
ideals have nobly led them on.

In 1838 began the history of the first Congregational Church of New Haven
to follow the star of westward empire. For at that time. Park Street was on
the frontier, and there was organized, with forty-nine members, the Park Street
Church. But moving with the tide of residence, it was found another block
out four years later, now with 150 members, and called the "Howe Street
Church." There it erected its first edifice, at the corner of Howe Street and
what was then Martin Street, now Edgewood Avenue, and there it remained for
thirty years. Its house of worship conformed to the prevailing New England
type of that time, and though less pretentious than the "ancient" churches on
the Green, was considered notable for what must, because of its remote western
location, have been considered a country church.

But New Haven's growth was westward, and this progressive church was
bound to be on the ci'est of the wave. Sometime before 1872 the church had
increased to a then notable size, having in excess of 200 members. They
realized that they must have a larger building, and determined that it was
d.esirable to place it still farther westward. So the present edifice was built
at the corner of Chapel and D wight streets, and the church was renamed the
Dwight Place Church. There it has rested from its westward progress, and
been content to serve and grow in an important and sterling residence part of the
city, while the city has grown on so that another Congregational church finds a
busy mission beyond it. The church is now the largest Congregational body in
New Haven, and one of the largest in Connecticut, having close to 1,000 members.

The first pastor of the church, in the old Park Street days, was Rev. Leicester
A. Sawyer. He remained in the pulpit, however, only from 1838 to 1840.
Then the Rev. Abram C. Baldwin was pastor until 1845. Mr. Sawyer returned
for nearly two years after that, but only as a supply. From 1847 till 1852,
or until nearly the middle of the Howe Street period, the pastor was Rev.
William De Loss Love. In 1861 the Rev. John S. C. Abbott, since widely kno-«Ti as
a historian, came to the pulpit, and i-emained until 1866. It will be noticed that
at a later time he was pastor for a few years of the Second Church of Fair
Haven. After a brief interval of supply Rev. George B. Neweomb came to the
church, but was only acting pastor for the next ten years. He was succeeded
by Rev. Thomas R. Bacon, whose pastorate extended from 1880 to 1884.

Three notable men have served the church in the modern period, perhaps

120 A MODERN HISTORY OF NEW HAVEN

its jjeriod of greatest progress and influence. Rev. Justin E. Twitchell, D. D.,
came to the church in 1885, and for thirteen years ministered to its growing
congregation, beloved by his church and honored throughout the city. He was
succeeded in 1899 by the Rev. William W. Leete, D. D., an earnest pastor,
an active and efficient organizer and a strong preacher. He retired from the
pastorate in 1914 to became field secretary of the Congregational Church Build-
ing Society, and shortly afterward was succeeded by the Rev. Harry R. Miles,
who has ably continued the high service of this important church, and entered
into the esteem of the whole community of New Haven. He also has gone to
Y. M. C. A. war service.

The second church of Fair Haven, founded when that section beyond the
river was East Haven territory, had its start in 1852. While yet it was an
infant, an untoward rivalry arose with a new church a little nearer the city.
This was the so-called Third ChurcJi of Fair Haven, of which Rev. William
B. Lee was pastor. It lasted only a year, however, and its members went
back to the second church. The fir.st regular pastor of the second church
was the Rev. Nathaniel J. Burton, who was with it from 1853 to 1857. There
then followed a series of notable men : Rev. Gurdon W. No.yes, from 1861
to 1869; Rev. John S. C. Abbott, widely known as a writer, from 1870 to 1875;
Rev. Richard B. Thurston, in 1875 and 1876; Rev. Horace B. Hovey, 1876 to
1883; Rev. Erastus Blakeslee, 1884 to 1887; Rev. D. Melancthon James, 1887
to 1903. He was followed by Rev. Robert E. Brown, who in 1910 was called
to the large Second Congregational Church of Waterbury. The Rev. Harris
E. Starr came down from Mount Carmel to succeed him, and was in the
midst of a most successful pastorate when this country entered the war. The
great need for spiritual ministry on the battle front seized him, and he went
out as a chaplain, taking from New Haven one of its most respected and useful
pastors. Early in the new century the name of this church was changed to
the Pilgrim Church.

Among the churches which old Center has mothered is Davenport. That
was started as a chapel on Wallace Street late in the 'fifties. A few years later
it had a chapel on Franklin Street. Its next move was to Greene Street in
1864. Ten years later its congregation was able to build the Davenport church,
and a period of great prosperity followed. Its pastor for a few years before
that had been Rev. John W. Partridge, but soon after the erection of the new
church came Rev. Isaac C. Meserve, and for twenty-four years he had one of
the livest and most progressive churches in New Haven. It was a church
popular in the best sense, a church of workers, earnest and true. Following
Doctor Meserve was the eight years' pastorate of the Rev. George Foster
Prentiss, in his time one of the most notable of the younger ministers of the
city. He was succeeded by the Rev. Jason Noble Pierce, just out of the semi-
nary, who remained from 1906 to 1908. By that time the church had come
seriously to feel the removal from its district of a great many of the people
who had formerly supported it. The Rev. Ernest L. Wismer .succeeded

AND EASTERN NEW HAVEN COUNTY 121

Mr. Pierce in 1908, hut in the following year the church gave up the struggle,
and its people voted to unite with Center. Center Church did not give it up,
however. It has been continued as an Italian Congregational body. The Rev.
Francesco Pesaturo was its pastor for several years, and did a noble work there.
When he went to New Britain, he was succeeded by the Rev. Philip M. Rose, who
has been equally successful.

Howard Avenue Church was organized in 1865. A few years previous to
that there had been what is now recalled by older residents as the old South
Church on Columbus Aveniie. In Civil War times, or just before, this church
split on the familiar rock of the slavery qiiestion, and a part of the members
were waiting for such an opportunity as the Howard Avenue Church presented.
The old South Church buildiiig, by the way, subseijuently went to a Catholic
congregation just being founded in that district, and is now the Church of the
Saci'ed Heart. The first pa.stor of the Howard Avenue Church was the Rev.
Orlando H. White. After a succession of brief pastorates, we find Rev. William
J. Mutch there from 1887 to 1907, who was succeeded by the Rev. J. Edward
Newton from 1908 to 1912. Both were able men and devoted pastors. TTnder
the former the church saw progress and prosperity. The latter led it when
it was facing the familiar problem of what to do when all the people move to
another part of the city. Rev. Albert L. Scales came in 1912 and left in 1917.
The present pastor is Rev. Peter Goertz.

Humphrey Street Church, in its beginnings of 1871, was another mission
of Center Church. As far back as that Humphrey Street was, churchwise, on
the frontier. Its first pastors were Rev. R. G. S. McNeille, 1871-1872; Rev.
R. P. Hibbard, 1876-1879; Rev. John A. Hainia, from 1879 till his death in
1880; Rev. Stephen H. Bray, 1883 to 1887. Rev. Frank R. Luckey came to it in
1887. He was young and the church was young; so were its people, in large
part. It was an inspiring combination. In those days the motto of "all the
church in the Sunday school, all the Sunday school in the church and everybody
in both" was adopted and made good. In a later period, this church also
suffered from the condensation of churches in its locality, and the removal else-
where of many of its people. But the faithful pastor held his ground. He still
serves the church, and is now the dean of the Congregational pastors of New
Haven, a position-in which they cheerfully hail him as a leader.

The Taylor Congregational Church, at the corner of Shelton Avenue and
Division Street, was established about 1873 as a mission of Center Church, and
has been, in recent years, much under the wing of the mother church. It has
had some prominent and faithful pastors, but they have not always been sup-
ported bj- such numbers as to encourage a minister. The first was the Rev.
Henry L. Hutehins, from 1873 to 1880. He was followed by the Rev. Newton
I. Jones, who remained for three years. The pastor from 1883 to 1885 was
Rev. Daniel W. Clark, and Rev. John Allender served the church for the years
succeeding 1885. The chureli has been without a settled pastor for the past
two vears.

122 A MODERN HISTORY OF NEW HAVEN

Congregationalism founded in other lands has been notably reflected in
New Haven. Aside from the Italian Congregational Church which Davenport
has become, there is the Swedish Emanuel Church on Wooster Place, between
Chapel and Greene streets, established less than two decades, and the Danish-
Norwegian Evangelical, of about the same age, located at 226 Cedar Street.
The pastor of the former is Rev. C. H. B. Petterson, and of the latter Rev. Eiel
S. Eielsen. A branch of the Italian Church is now conducted at 59 Oak Street.

There was a Ferry Street Congregational Church, founded in 1887 on upper*
Ferry Street, near the point where the railroad crosses. At one time there
was sufficient congregation so that a fair sized building was erected. The pulpit
was mostly supplied from the Yale divinity school. But it had a precarious
existence, and gave up tlie ghost about 1900. Since then the building has
disappeared.

It does not profit now to recall the spirit of opposition to the estal)lished
church of England in which the first churches of New Haven were founded,
except as a background. It was freedom to wor.ship God as they pleased which
the early fathers sought, but when they had obtained it, they were not minded
to extend it to others, least of all to their ancient eneinies of that church whose
bishop of Lond<in vowed to inbil)it .John Davenport, even in his refuge across the
sea. There was a long and bitter fight before the Church of England was given
a foothold in New Haven, and it was 114 years before a truce was declared.
But the short of the story is that Trinity Parish, organized in 1752, did
build a house of worship on the east side of Church Street, near Chapel, thereb.y
giving Church Street its name. There the people of Trinity worshipped for
sixty-two years. Sixty-two years can make marvels, but the spirit of brotherhood
accomplished, even in that time, a wonderful work to have so changed the hearts
of the descendants of Davenport's stern parishioners, and the proprietors of the
Green, that they were ready to permit the erection on the spot dedicated to
everlasting liberty, a church of their former religious foe. That building,
the present dignified and handsome home of the church, was completed in 1815.
Tluis — and the coincidence is worth noticing — the three noble church buildings
which stand on the Green today, the only ones of many which have survived,
the only buildings which seem likely to stand on the Green for some time to
come, were completed within two years of 1815.

This first Church of England has been served, in its 166 years of histoi-y, by
rectors few in number but mighty in influence. Rev. Harvey Crosswell, the
first, continued until 1859. The Rev. Edwin Ilarwood came to the ehui'ch in
that year, and for almost forty years, or until his health failed in 1895, was
its rector, occupying a commanding place in the city's civic as well as religious
affairs, highly honored of all. Rev. Charles 0. Scoville came into his place
then, and his more than two decades of leadership of this church and people
have been notable ones.

TKIXITY PROTESTANT EPISCOPAL CHURCH. NE\Y HAVEN

AND EASTERN NEW HAVEN COUNTY 123

Proceeding in chronological order, the next Episcopal church after Trinity
was St. James' Church in Westville. It came into existence after the central
church liad served the adherents of this form of religious worship for only
eighteen years less than a century. Then, in 1835, Westville, feeling remote
and independent, required a church, and St. James was the result. Its first
rector was Rev. Stephen Jewett, who was with the church from 1835 to 1847,
being succeeded by the Rev. Henry Townsend. In the next forty years there
was a succession of brief rectorates, as many as twenty, we are told. In 1888
Rev. Charles 0. Scoville, who later became rector of Trinity on the Green, was
rector, and remained for seven years. The following year Rev. J. Frederick
Sexton come from Cheshire to this church, and has since been its rector, with
a remarkable administration of over two decades to his credit. In that time the
church has been a steady, spiritual power in Westville, and Mr. Sexton a per-
suasive force for good in the counnuuity. The church has outgrown its building
long since, and for several years past it has been the effort of Mr. Sexton to
secure means for making for it a new and modern home and center of influence.
A substantial fund has been created for this purpose, but pressing events delay
the consummation.

Another St. James, at the opposite side of the town, follows in the order.
It is tlie Church of England which guards, .jointly with what is now Pilgrim
Churcli. the gateway to Fair Haven Heights. Of course that was East Haven
gi'ound in 1843, when this church was founded. The church had several rectors
for brief periods in its first two years, but then it was distinguished by one of the
long rectorates, even of New England. Rev. William E. Vibbert came to the
church in 1845. He remained its rector for forty-six years, and became a power
among the clergj-men of his order in the vicinity. He was followed in 1891 by
the Rev. Charles H. Doupe, who remained for six years. Then came the Rev.
A. P. Chapman and A. D. Miller for brief rectorates. The present rector is
Rev. John C. France.

There may have been no inclination to draw the color line, but rather early
in the history of the Episcopal Church in New Haven its members of dark
skin thought it well to have their own church. So it was that St. Luke's was
founded as early as 1844. It early erected a building on lower Whalley Avenue,
and thei'e it has had a worthy record ever since, and some men of high dis-
tinction have l^een among its rectors. The first was the Rev. Worthington
Stokes, who was with the church for several years in its early time. Among
the others have been the Rev. Theodore Hawley, who was later bishop of
Hayti, and E. L. Henderson, who was rector in 1901 and the seven years fol-
lowing. For the past decade the rector has been Rev. Harry 0. Bowles.

It is natural to look for a Church of England in the Wooster Square district
in the middle of the last century, and there one finds, founded in 1851,
St. Paul 's. There it has been continuously for nearly three-quarters of a century,
doing a steady, constructive work, which is more effective today than ever before
in its history, despite the materially changed character of its neighborhood.

124 A MODERN HISTORY OF NEW HAVEN

lu other respects it has beeu a remarkable church. Tliere are few churches in
Connecticut or New England which in sixty-seven years have had two men called
from their rectorates to bishop's chairs, but such is St. Paul's record.

Rev. Samuel Cooke was the first rector, continuing until nearly 1860. Rev.
Edward L. Drown ministered to the church from 1860 to 1868. Rev. Francis
Lobdell was the rector from 1869 to 1879. Then followed the distinguished
rectorate of Rev. Edwin S. Lines, continuing from 1879 until, in 1903, he was
elected bishop of Newark. The following year Rev. J. DeWolfe Perry, Jr.,
came to the rectorate, and had successfully led the church for seven years when
he was elected bishop of Rhode Island. In 1911 Rev. George L. Paine became
rector, and under him the church has especially adapted itself to its problem
of holding its strength of membership, and at the same time serving the people,
.seemingly alien to its fellowship, who live round about it. To his wise and
unselfish leadership the older members have been loyal, finding joy and satis-
faction in the service of the people in this part of the city. St. Paul 's settlement
w-ork. its general exemplification of how a church can find its greatest strength
in expressional activity, have been shown elsewhere.

The next Episcopal church to be established. St. Thomas, in 1848, has had in
respect to rectorate a remarkable record. Its seventy years of history have
been covered by the terms of two rectors, of the same name and family. Rev. Eben
Edwards Beai-dsley came to this church when it was establi-shed. He found it using
a rented room, small in membership and in need of good leadership. He made
St. Thomas one of the strong members of the Episcopal fellowship in his forty-
four years of service. Its present dignified stone building on Elm Street was
erected in 1854 and 1855, and in it the church grew and served the city for
the years of his leadership. In 1890 the Rev. William Agur Beardsley, nephew
of the rector, came to be his assistant. Two years later, on his uncle's death
in 1892, he became rector, and has since conducted the church's important
work. Uncle and nephew have been prominent in the church of state and
country, men of widely recognized abilit,v in many ways.

In 1851 was formed St. John's Episcopal Church, which built a few years
later, at the corner of State and Elm streets, what the irreverent used to call
the "wheelbarrow church," because of its modest size and unaspiring archi-
tecture. In the first thirty years of its time it was served by Rev. John T.
Huntington, its first rector, by Rev. Benjamin W. Stone and by Rev. Richard
Whittingham, who was rector in 1874. In 1883 Rev. Stewart Means came to
this rectorate, and has led the church ever since, in what has been its period
of greatest usefulness and progress. At the beginning of the century, under his
leadership, the church changed its location to a site on Orange Street at the
corner of Humphrey, where it erected one of the most seemly and attractive
church buildings in the city, and has continued a noble work. Dr. Means, though
now in his thirty -sixth year of service with this chxirch, a period which has made
liiiti the dean of all the Protestant clergy of New Haven, continues his useful
work and leadership with undiminislied vigor.

AND EASTERN NEW HAVEN COUNTY 125

That same year the Cliurcli of tlie Ascension was estal>lishcd as a mission
ehapel of St. Panl's, in what was the southern edge of the city. It later Iniilt
at Davenport Avenue and Ward Street. It has bravely striven to uphold the
faith and worship of its order in a locality which has lost most of its English
population. It has lieen led by a long list of faithful men, many of its pastorates
being brief ones. Rev. Philip Mariett was rector from 1898 to 1902, and the
present rector is Rev. Harold Johns.

New Haven's most distinguished high chun-h, an able member of its galaxy
of fine Episcopal churches, is Christ Church on Broadway. It dates back to
1856, when it was founded with Rev. Joseph Brewst<»r, father of the present
bishop of the Connecticut diocese, as its rector. He gave the church an excellent
start and high standing through a service of twenty-si.x years. Retiring in 1882,
he was succeeded by Rev. George Brinley Morgan, who remained with the church
until his unfortunate death by accident in 1908. Rev. Frederick Merwin
Burgess followed him, and ably carried on the work for four years, when he
succumbed to the tremendous liurden of the church's work, and terminated
wliat promised to be a most brilliantly useful career. The present rector is
Rev. William Osborn Baker.

(iraee Church on Blatehley Avenue in Fair Haven was established in 1871,
and has had a suee^ession of rather brief pastorates. Among the men who have
led it are Rev. John W. Leek, Rev. Peter A. Jay, Rev. John H. Fitzgerald,
Rev. Herbert N. Denslow, Rev. Elihu T. Sanford, Rev. F. R. Sanford, and Rev.
George A. Alcott^ the present rector, who has ably served the church siuce 1906.

Forbes Chapel of the Epiphany, on Forbes Avenue, is a mission of St. Paul's.
It is now ministered to by Rev. Robert Bell. St. Andrew's Chapel at Shelton Ave-
nue and Ivy Street was a mission of Trinity, but now it has an independent
organization, and is ministered to by Rev. W. E. Morgan. All Saint's Chapel
at Howard Avenue and Lamberton Street, under the direction of Trinity
Church, has Rev. William P. Williams in charge.

CHAPTER XV
NEW HAVEN'S CHURCHES (Concliuled)

THE EAELV AND LATER GROWTH (JF THE METHODIST CHURCHES THE BAPTIST

CHURCHES THE GREAT RECORD OP THE CHURCH OP ROME THE JEWISH CON-
GREGATIONS AND THEIR LEADERS — THE VALUABLE GROUP OP YOUNGER CHURCHES

If the original plnireliman of the Davenport school looked askanee at the
arrival of the Church of England, they did more than that when the ilethodi.sts
appeared on the scene. Their origin was suspected, their ways of worship were
to them objectionable. Moreover, in 1789, when their first scattering representa-
tives appeared, tliey were so few in number as to fail to .secure respect. But
tolerance had entered New Haven in the century and a half of its existence,
and the MethodLsts, who previous to that time had depended on occasional offices
from circuit preachers, were suffered in 179.5 to organize their first church.
But when they sought a central place for a building, they met with difficulties. "
So after worshipping liere and there for the first two years, they were content
with the purchase of the building on Gregson Street previously used by the then
extinct Sandemanian Church. Here, the record tells, they were more or less
disturbed, at the first, by certain of the rowdy element, who had a notion it was
popular to "bait" the Methodists. They prospered after a fashion, nevertheless,
so that in 1807 they |)ut up theii' first liuilding. This was what was long known
as the Temple Street Church, on the east side of Temple Street south of Center —
later used by the fiivst colored congregation, and still later by a Jewish congre-
gation. Here, in a building unfinished and narrow, they worshipped for the
next fifteen years.

The experiences of this congregation, when in 1821 they erected their build-
ing on the Green, and rebuilt it the following year, have been told elsewhere.
They did a fine M-ork in that liai'c old building, however, and justified to men in
New Haven the way of God as they interpreted Him. So did they prosper
that in a few decades they found it desirable to erect a new l)uilding, which out-
wardly was more in keeping with the city's improving architecture, at the
corner of Elm and College streets. As remodeled to the present date, it is
without and within one of the finest of our church buildings.

12t5

AND EASTEKN NEW HAVEN COUNTY 127

In its century and a quarter tlie ehurt-li lias been sei-ved by a long line of
able men — many of them, in the days of short pastorates. Now its ministers
seldom remain less than five years. In the past two decades its pastors have
been Rev. Charles P. Masden, Rev. Gardner S. Eldridge, Rev. Henry Baker,
Rev. Francis T. Brown, Rev. Elmer A. Dent, who at the close of his pastorate
was made a district superintendent, Rev. John W. Laird and the present pastor,
Rev. W. H. Wakeman.

The second ]\lethodist Cburcb founded in the New Haven district seems to
have been that at Westville, to which is assigned the date of 1815. It was
the outgrowth of the demand of settlers in that important part of the town
to have their own community life. It has done a sterling work, and has been
presided over by many able men. Some of its recent pastors have been Rev. Wil-
liam McNieholl, who was there in 1896, and Rev. L. H. Dorchester, who led the
church for 1913 and previous years. The present pastor is Rev. William H.
Mitchell.

Methodism was inevitably well represented among the colored brethren early
in the last century, and we find their oldest church to have a record now ap-
proaching a century in length. What was formerly the John Wesley Church
on Webster Street, now the Varick ^lemorial, with a recently erected building
on Dixwell Avenue, dates back to 1820, and has an honorable history. Its
present pastor is Rev. H. McElroy Stovall.

Fair Haven also was early represented in Methodism. Its East Pearl Street
Church dates from 1832, and was started on Exchange Street. Some of its
recent pastors have been Rev. R. T. ]\IcNicholl, Rev. Edgar C. Tullar, Rev. George
Benton Smith and Rev. G. E. Warner, who now occupies the pulpit.

A second African ^Methodist Church dates shortly after the original one.
It is the Bethel on Sperry Street, founded in 1842. Its pastor is Rev. William
H. Lacey.

Grace Methodist Church on Howard Avenue is another of the old churches
of the city. In a section not now strongly Protestant, and somewhat oversup-
plied by Methodist Churches, it has done a good work and kept the faith. Its
present pastor is Rev. H. M. Hancock.

There was a George Street Methodist Church on the south side of that street,
almost at its lower end, in 1853. But that locality was rapidly changing from
residential to commercial, and it presently disappeared.

The German Methodist Chiirch on Columbus Avenue has a history dating
from 1854, and has nobly upheld the faith of Wesley among the people of
Luther. The latest of a long line of faithful pastors is Rev. Herman Blesi.

Summerfield Church was started in 1871 in a carriage shop in Newhallville,
they tell us. It built at Dixwell and Henry in 1875, and its present building
twenty years later. Rev. R. L. Tucker at present ministers to it.

Howard Avenue Church was established in what must have been in 1872
the isolated oyster community of Oyster Point, since dignified to City Point.
It has since served its community well, though changing conditions have been

128 A MODERN HISTORY OF NEW HAVEN

somewhat against it. Its recent pastors have been Rev. Robert J. Beach, Rev.
John "W. Mace and Rev. Daniel Dorchester, Jr.

There was a Methodist group who, previous to 1882, erected a building at
the corner of Chapel and Day Streets. There was another on Davenport Avenue.
That year they united, and in 1883 built what we know as Trinity Church at
George and Dwight Streets. Since then this has been one of the leading ^leth-
odist churches. Some of the well remembered and honored pastors of the past
twenty years have been Rev. B. F. Kidder, Rev. H. Frank Rail, Rev. "W. H.
Kidd, Rev. John W. Maynard, Rev. Hubert B. Munson and the present beloved
Rev. Arthur H. Goodenough.

The gap between New Haven and East Haven was being so well filled by
1886 that a church was demanded at ""Four Corners," and the Methodists
seized the opportunity. St. Andrews Church serves a new and growing com-
munity. Its pastor for several years previous to April, 1918, was the Rev.
John Lee Brooks, who then resigned to enter Y. M. C. A. work in Hartford.
Rev. F. C. Tucker was assigned to the church in 1918.

Almost the newest ilethodist Church is Epworth, built in 1892 out in the
growing section of Orange Street. It has grown to one of the strong congre-
gations of its city. Some of the men who have served are Rev. Duane N.
Griffin, now of Hartford, who was pastor in 1896, Rev. Benjamin M. Tipple,
who was pa.stor in 1898 and the years following, Rev. E. Foster Piper and Rev.
E. S. Neumann, at jiresent with the cburch.

The First Swedish Church, at 6.) Park Street, is a recent addition to Meth-
odism, but prospering. It is in charge of Rev. Fridolph Soderman.

Recently a third has been added to the group of A. M. E. churches, St. Paul's
U. A. M. E. Church on Web.ster Sti'eet. Its pastor is Rev. Joseph H. Chase.

The tirst Bapti.st congregation appeared in New Haven in 1816. when twelve
disciples of this faith started pulilic worship in the building on the east side
of Church Street which Trinity had just abandoned for its tine edifice on the
Green. Their preacher was the Rev. Elisha Cushman. They did not long remain
on Church Street — perhaps the ])nilding was larger than they needed at that
time. At any rate, we find them shortly afterward worshipping in the lodge
room of Amos Doolittle. on College Street north of Elm which "Old Hiram"
Lodge of Masons had recently occupied. Here they worshipped vuitil 1821. It
seems that they had an ambition to get a site on the Green, and accounts are con-
fusing as to whether they ever received the permission. At any rate, they
did not build there, but went toward the then popular section of Woo.ster Square.
Their first building was at Chapel and Academy streets. Then, for some reason,
they moved up to the State House for a time. Then they built again on Chapel
Street near Olive. Meanwhile a second Baptist Church had been formed, which
built on the south side of Wooster Square. In 1845, three years after this, the

CAL\AKV BAPTIST CHURCH, XKW HANKX

lw?wiii(iii(iiiiiiiiiniiiiiiiiiimMiiM

AND EASTERN NEW HAVEN COUNTY 129

two congregations united in tlie Wooster Square building. This eliureh was
nearly destroyed by fire in 1871, but restored and enlarged the following year,
and was the place of an active church body until 1903, when the First Baptist
yielded to the common pressure, and changed its location to the corner of
Livingston and Edwards streets, erecting one of the most attractive buildings
in the city.

Many distinguished men have served this church. The first pastor was
Rev. Henry Lines, in the days previous to 1821. Rev. Benjamin M. Hill
was with the church from 1821 to 1830. One of its ablest leaders of the early
period was Rev. S. Dryden Phelps, who was pastor from 1845 to 1873. Some of
the pastors in the years following were: Rev. J. M. Stitier, Rev. "W. H.
Butrick, and in the later period, Rev. John H. Mason, Rev. E. C. Sage and
Rev. Frederick Lent, who has led the congregation in its new location, and
greatl.y developed the church.

The second Baptist Church to be founded was Lnmanuel, which the colored
brethren started in 1856. It has had a prosperous existence ever since. Its
best years have been in it,s home at Chapel and Day streets, which it purchased
from the Methodists in 1882. There it has had two distinguished pastorates,
those of Rev. A. C. Powell and the Rev. David S. Klugh, who 1ms ably led the
church since 1909.

In 1868 the German Baptists established their church at George and Broad
streets, and have done a quiet but valuable work there ever since. Some of their
pastors have been strong men in the New Haven fellowship, notaljly Rev. Otto
Koenig and the present pastor. Rev. Julius Kaaz.

"The church of a thousand welcomes." Calvary Baptist Church calls itself
in these days. For two decades it Jias through its location as well as through
the spirit of its leadership and following, occupied a prominent place in the life
of New Haven. It was founded in 1871, and its ample building at Chapel and
York streets was erected soon after. In the late eighties it was destroj-ed by
fire, but was restored in even better form. It has been led by a line of remark-
able men. Previous to 1888 its pastor was Rev. T. S. Samson. Then Rev. Edwin
M. Poteat was pastor until 1898, followed by Rev. George H. Ferris, 1899 to
1905, Rev. Donald D. Munro, 1905 to 1911, Rev. John Wellington Hoag, 1911
to 1916, and since then Rev. James MeGee.

The Grand Avenue Baptist Church was founded in 1871, and has vigorously
represented that creed in Fair Haven. Some of its recent pastors have been
Rev. E. C. Sage, who later went to the First Church, Rev. Charles B. Smith and
Rev. C. M. Sherman. The church was without a regular pastor in 1917.

Nearly the newest but at present one of the most vigorous of the Baptist
churches is Olivet, founded in 1904 on Dixwell Avenue. It had a struggle for
the first few years, but came into its own in 1914, when it completed a new and
handsome building on Dixwell Avenue .iu.st north of its .junction with Shelton.
The present pastor is Rev. George C. Chappelle.

Two Baptist churches of recent origin complete the list. They are the

Vol. I 9

]30 A MODERN HISTORY OF NEW HAVEN

Swedish Church, founded in 1882, now located at 100 Lawrence Street, of whicli
Rev. Nathaniel C. Edwell is pastor, and the Italian Baptist on George Street,
whose present pastor is Rev. G. Basile.

Ill

By the end of the first third of the last century New Haven had become
used to innovations in church population, and had a little outgrown that pro-
vincialism which would have limited the churches of the cities to those of the
Congregational order. The beginning of immigration which followed 1820,
being mostly from Ireland, inevitably brought with it a demand for Roman
Catholic churches. There were none of these, however, until after 1834. Previous
to that time the Rev. James Fitton. coming here from Hartford, ministered
occasionally to those of this faith, but there was no church. By 1834, however,
there must have been a large number of Catholics in the city, more than enough
for one church. They were grouped largely in the Second, Third and Fourth
wards, or the southwestern part of the city. There accordingly, in the year
mentioned, a building called Christ Church was erected at the corner of Daven-
port Avenue and York Street. It was so crowded at its dedication that the loft
containing the organ fell, killing two persons. In this building the first Catholic
Church of New Haven held its services for the next fourteen years. In 1848 it
js^as burned. The character of its support and its locality, had considerably
changed in the meantime, and when a temporary building was erected to replace
this church, it was located on Church Street, and was named St. Mary's. This
seems to have been used, however, for more than twenty years, while prepara-
tions were being made for an edifice which should befit the important center of
Connecticut Catholicism which New Haven was destined to be. This was the
new St. Marj-'s Chui'ch on Hillhouse Avenue, sometimes incorrectly called "the
cathedral," which was completed in 1875 at a cost of $150,000. It was then
and still is the finest church building in New Haven, and atlequately serves
a.s the central structure for the people of this faith.

"Within this period five other churches had sprung up in various sections of
the city. On the site where the first Christ Church had been burned was in
1858 erected St. John's Church, which has remained and flourished there ever
since. Eight years before this, the older part of Grand Avenue had rc(|uired
its own church, and St, Patrick's was built. In 1865 another congregation had
acquired what w^as built as the South Congregational Church on Columbus
Avenue, and had made it the Sacred Heart Church, At least that was the founda-
tion of the commodious edifice which now stands at the corner of Columbus
Avenue and Liberty Street. St. Francis had been erected in Fair Haven in
1867, and a year later so many German Catholics had come to New Haven that
they had their own church, St, Boniface, at 229 George Street. And not long
after that Westville established its own church.

So we find the New Haven of twenty years ago with nine Catholic chiirches.

ST. MARY'S ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH, NEW HAVEN

AND EASTERN NEW HAVEN COUNTY 131

the growth of the first half century of foiuidatioii. Over them presided priests
whose names are still familiar to New Haveners. The Rev. John D. Coyle was
at St. John's, as he is today. Rev. John Russell wa-s at St. Patrick's, where
he had been since 1883, and where he still is. Rev. Joseph A. Sehaele, the
present pastor of St. Boniface's, was there in 1918, and had been since 1872.
Rev. Michael ^IcKeon was then, as now, pastor of the Church of the Sacred
Heart. Rev. P. M. Kennedy was at St. Francis. Rev. Hugh F. Lilly presided
over the large force of St. Clary's. This original church has since 1885 been
in charge of the order of the Dominican Fathers, and its pastors change more
frequently than do those of the other churches. The Rev. Peter Lotti was at
St. Michael's in 1898, the Rev. Joseph Senesac at St. Louis, and the Rev. Jere-
miah Curtin at St. Josei^h's in Westville.

A review of some of the names before that brings to remembrance some which
were familiar and honored in New Haven only a little earlier. They were Rev.
ilatthew Hart and Very Rev. James Lynch at St. Patrick's, Rev. Hugh Carmody,
D.D.. and Rev. John Cooney at St. John's: Rev. P. A. Gaynor and Rev. Patrick
JIulholland at St. Francis; Rev. J. A. Mulcahy and Rev. Michael McCune at
Sacred Heart. Every one of these names means years of priceless experience
to thou.sauds of faithful Catholics in New Haven.

Ten years more, and in 1908 we find the nine churches grown to fourteen.
There were few changes in the pa.storates, except that new men had come with
the new churches. Rev. E. J. Farmer was at St. Mai-y's. Rev. Robert J. Early
was at St. Peters, one of the new churches.

Five years ago, the number of churches had gi'own to sixteen. Today there
lare seventeen, six of them having their accompanying parochial schools, while
St. Mary's has both a school and an academy. The list of churches in 1917, with
their dates of establishment and their present pastors, is as follows :

St. Mary's, originally Christ Church, founded on Davenport Avenue, in 1834,
now on Hillhouse Avenue. Pastor, Rev. J. P. Aldridge, O.P.

St. Patrick's on Grand Avenue, founded in 1850. Pa,stor, Rev. John
Russell.

St. John's on Davenport Avenue, founded 1858. Pastor, Rev. John D.
Coyle.

St. Francis on Ferry Street, founded 1867. Pastor, Rev. James J. Smith.

St. Boniface, German, George Street, founded 1868. Pastor, Rev. Joseph A.
Sehaele.

St. Joseph's. Westville, founded 1872. Pastor, Rev. John J. McGivney.

Sacred Heart on Columbus Avenue, founded 1875. Pastor, Rev. Michael
McKeon.

St. Louis, French, East Chapel Street, founded 1889. Pastor, Rev. C. H.
Paquette.

St. Michael's, Italian, Wooster Place, founded 1890. Pastor, Rev. Leonardo

Quaglia.

St. Joseph's, on Edwards Street, founded 1900. Pastor, Rev. A. F. Harty.

132 A MODERN HISTORY OF NEW HAVEN

St. Peter's, on Kimberly Avenue, founded about 1900. Pastor, Rev. Robert
J. Early.

St. Stanislaus, Polish, End and State streets, founded about 1900. Rector,
Rev. Anthony Mazurkiewiez.

St. Anthony's, Italian, on Washington Avenue, founded 1903. Pastor, Rev.
Bartolomeo ]\Iarenchino.

St. Rose's on Blatchley Avenue, founded 1907. Pastor, Rev. John J. Fitz-
gerald.

St. Casimir's, Lithuanian, St. John Street, founded 1908. Pastor, Rev. Vin-
cent P. Karkauskas.

St. Brendan's on Carmel Street, founded 1909. Pastor, Rev. John J.
McLaughlin.

St. Michael's, Rutlieuian Greek, on Park Street, founded 1910. Pastorate
supplied.

These seventeen churclies, as their number stood at the end of 1917, indicate
something of the large population of this faith in New Haven, and of the great-
ness of the work done. Their membership, which of course includes the young
a.s well as the old in their parishes, is doubtless larger than that of the other
churches combined. Tliey have some of the finest of the church buildings of the
city, their architecture being always dignified and appropriate. They are a
tremendous force for community good, holding in churchly ways and to church
ideals many of the people, old as well as new, who without them might drift and
lower their standards. They are served by faithful men, many of whom have
entered heartily into the community life of their adopted city, and all of them
are a worthy contribution to its citizenship.

• There have been representatives of the Jewish faith in New Haven at least
since 1770, though it appears that not until 1840 was there a group sufficiently
large to form a "congregation." In that year, when the first authoritative records
kept by any of the local congregations begin, a company of twenty Bavarians
formed themselves into a liody for the worship of their fathers' God in their
fathere' way. In that group, as we get the record, are some names which New
Haven recognizes and honors now, such luimes as Adler, Lehman, Lautenbach
and Ullman.

The story of the formation of that first congregation is not ven- comjiletely
preserved. From various .sources, including newspaper accounts, we learn that
in 1846 this congregation dedicated to their purpose a hall on the fourth floor
of the Brewster Building. Shaar Shalom, "Gate of Peace," is the name given
to this congregation by one historian, though it is otherwise mentioned as Mish-
kan Shalom, Tabernacle of Peace and ^Mishkan Israel. It is supposed, however,
to have been a secession from the first group of Bavarian families. The last
name is the one which it has held in the seventy years since 1849. It had forty-

FIRST CHURCH OF CHRIST S( I EXT 1ST, NEW HAVEX

iUSHKAN ISRAEL SVNAi.ni,! K. M-.W 1IA\ EN

AND EASTERN NEW HAVEN COUNTY 133

nine members then. About that time there was a union of Mishkan Shalom and
Mishkan Israel under the latter name.

For six or seven years after 1849 the habitation and the achievements of this
congregation are hazy. It does not appear that in that time they had any
synagogue of their own other than rented halls. It was in 1856 that the con-
gregation acquired the building on Court Street, below Orange, which had
just been vacated by the Third Congregational Church. There it worshipped
until 1896, when it built the Temple on Orange Street, the twentieth anniversary
of whose occupancy it celebrated in 1916.

The records of this congregation show a succession of men who have been
trusted and honored by all their fellow citizens of New Haven, as well as by
their brethren in being made presidents. Among them, in the days previous to
1872, are .such names as Jacob Thalmon, Israel Bretzfelder, Isaac and Abraham
Ullman, Meyer Kahn, and Isaac Williams. In the musical history of the syna-
gogue appears prominently the name of ilorris Steinert, who became master of
the organ and the choir when the former was introduced in 1863.

The names of the earlier rabbis have not been completely preserved, but it
is agreed that Rev. B. E. Jacobs was the first. In 1864, and until 1873, Rabl)i
Jonas Gabriel served the congi-egation. In his period there were other innova-
tions as nota-ble as the introduction of the organ and choir just before he came.
They stopped segregating women in the synagogue sei*viee in 1864, instituting the
family pew. In 1873 Rabbi Judah Wechsler succeeded Rabbi Gabriel. In his time
the religious school wa.s instituted, and the women foiuid their place in the
active institutions and work of the synagogue. There were also radical changes
in the ritiial. He was succeeded in 1878 by Dr. Kleeberg, a learned man, a power-
ful leader, recognized, we are told, as the strongest man who up that time had
led the congregation.

In 1893 Rabbi David Levy was called from Charleston, and devotedly served
the congregation — as well as hundreds of other friends whom he made in the
city — for the next twenty years. Of him his successor feelingly remarks: "The
simplicity of the sei'\'ices, the reverent decorum, the punctuality of the members
and the modernization of the religious school are but a few of the lasting effects
of his services for a period of twenty years. In 1896, under the spell of his
enthusiasm, together with that of loyal workers whose names are well known,
the corner stone of the present synagogue was laid in January, and in March
of 1897 this building was dedicated as a house of God."

Rabbi Levy was succeeded by Rabbi Louis L. Mann, whose fine scholarship,
true humanity and earnest enthusia.sm have already endeared him not only to
his cougi-egation but to all men of the brotherly spirit in New Haven who have
come in contact with him. The congregation looks forward, under his leadership,
to one of its most useful periods.

Some of the presidents of the congregation in the modem period indicate
most clearly the excellent following which the rabbis have had. Some of them —

KU A MODEKN lllSTOKV OF NKW HAVEN

to nuMiti.m only a tVw— iiro M.«os Mann. M. Sonnenborg. -Moritz Spior. (.'harles
Kloiuor, Max Aillor and Harry W. Aslior.

Mishkan Israol has for tliroo ilocados boon roeoguizod as the leading and most
progrossivo synngoguo in Now Havon. but tlioro is a nobU> body of snialler con-
grogations, sonio of whioh have found their strength in the following tlioy have
roeeived from a strioter interpretation of the traditions handed down from the
falhei-s, Oliief of thoin is the Congregation IVnai .laoob. whioh in 181-i left its
old plaoe of worship on Temple Street for a now and handsome building on
(^eorgi^ Street, between College and High. Its pivsident is TI. Kesnik. Six other
eongregations, all of them of the order called '• orthodox. "' uphold the worship
and traditions of Israel in various parts of tlie eity : Congregation B'nai Soholm,
})S Olive Stivet, President. Joseph Kaiser; Congregation Reth llaiuedrosh llagodel
U'nai Israel. U> Rose Street. Tresident Jlax Ri>soff : Congregation Biekur Cholim
H'nai Abraham. 21 Factory Sti-oet. President David Levy: Congregiition ilgni
David. 1() Pradley Stivet. President Miehael Givert^: Congregation Shaivi Toure.
55 York Street. President II. Kosenlvrg: Congregation Shevith Aehim, 10
Faetorv Stivet, Pivsident L. lAniiie.

There has Iven a l^nivei"Sj\list Cliuroh in Xew Haven since 1850. and it has
had an honorable history. Tlunv has not. however, appeaivd to be a tendency
to incivase of adhoivnt« of this faith in this city, and with the exoeptiou of a few
yeai-s in this period, when tlieiv was a second church, this cougregatiou has been
by itself. It had its unpleasjint experiences in former yeare, no doubt, with a
class of Christians who deemed themselves "evangelical." and some othei-s not.
but it has survived by deserving. The tii-st pastor of this Church of the Jlessiah.
as its name is. was the Rev. S. C. Bnlkeley. aud in the begiuuiug of the modern
period Rev. W. F, Diokerman led the people. For the past eleven veal's Rev.
The^idore A. Fischer has lH>en its pastor, and has occupied in the couimunity
a position of t^tccm givatly exceeding the comparative size of this church and
denomination.

Then^ aiv six Lutheran eougn>gations in the cit.v. ranging in date from
Trinity German Lutheran, established in 1S65, to the Fii-st English Lutheran,
starteti in 1902. The tirst mentioned worshipped for many years on lower George
Street, but as ahvady told, when the Church of the K4.Hieemer left its house of
worship at Oranjrt^ and "Wall streets in 1916, it sold to this church. The pastor
is Rev. Arnold F. Keller. The others in their order aiv:

German K\-angelical Lutheran Zion. 1SS3, pastor. Rev. Julius C. Kretzman:
Swctlish Evangelical Lutheran Bethesda. ISSo, pastor. Rev. Carl H. Xelson:
German Evangi^lioal Lutheran Emanuel. 1S90. pastor. Rev. Henry W. Toight :
Trinity Danish Lutheran, 1S97, pastor. Rev. P. Christian Stockholm; First
English Lutheran. 1902, pastor. Rev. John E. Ainsworth,

Xew Haven's only Presbyterian Church dates from 1S86. and has had in that

CHURCH OF 'I'llK \IKSSI.\II. CNINKHSAUST, NKW HAVKN

AND EASTERN NEW HAVEN COUNTY 135

time but one pastor, Rev. F. A. M. Brown, D.D. It erected soon after its
foundation a parish house on the south side of lower Elm Street, and there
it worshipped until 1907, when it completed a handsome building. The church
occupies an important position in the religious life of New Haven despite its
apparent loneliness.

Two Advent churches liave been established in New Haven to serve this
peculiar but not numerous ]>ody of the faithful. The Second Advent Church, of
which Rev. James A. Osborne is pastor, is on Beers Street, and the Seventh Day
Advent Church, under the leadership of Rev. Sidney E. Norton, meets at 68
.Brewster Street.

Christian Science has a live organization in New Haven. Formerly there
M-ere two churches, but when in 1907 the First Church erected a handsome
edifice at the corner of Winthrop and Derby avenues the two combined, and
are doing a strong and progressive work.

For several years past New Haven has had one Church of God and Saints
of Christ, more conveniently kno^Mi as the Mormon Church. It is led by Elder
William A. Blount.

CHAPTER XVI
NEW HAVEN'S SCHOOLS

THEIR DEVELOPMENT AND PRESENT CONSTITUTION— THEIR EXCELLENT EQUIPMENT,
FORCE AND OPERATION MISCELLANEOUS AND FRn'ATE SCHOOLS

As an ancient centei* of education, as the pioneer in its state and one of the
pioneers of the nation, New Haven holds an unchallenged claim. It has this
place today, not wholly because of its excellent equipment of modern colleges
and schools, but because of a group of educational forces which nuike it still as
nearly unique as it was in the beginning.

Already we have seen how close the school was to the head of the plans for
an ideal state which the first founders had. We have traced their high-inten-
tioned, though somewhat disastrous, efforts to make the school the handmaid of
the church. It is through these that New. Haven has the record of offering to
the people the first free school of Connecticut. There was in that the germ
of the common school, though the idea which might have developed from it was,
to our modern conception of the school function, a strange one. That plan was
interrupted, and. it came about that for a good many years the distinctively
common public school idea was partiall,y displaced bj- the grammar or semi-
private school. The school started under the tutelage of Ezekiel Cheever, con-
tinued after his departure by more or less effective teachers such as the young
community could furnish, gave New Haven all the educational service it had
for twenty years or so. Then it was eclipsed by the result of the will of Governor
Edward Hopkins, of which we have already heard. The property disposed by the
will of Governor Hopkins was not distributed till 1660. From that year dates
New Haven's oldest school, which has been continued without a break to this
time. There are a few older schools, but the fact that Hopkins Grammar School
has been continued for over two centuries and a half in the town where it was
founded, and its distinguished list of graduates, make it one of the most notable
educational institutions of the country, and indicate something of the prestige
it has given New Haven.

Of late years New Haven has developed so excellent a public high school,
and such a multitude of private college preparatory schools have arisen all over
the east, that Hopkins Grammar School, which is primarily a preparatory school

136

AND EASTERN NEW HAVEN COUNTY 137

for Yale, has had a trying competition. The age and bareness of its historic
building on High Street, and the pressure of Yale's expansion in that direction,
have caused its removal to an excellent building at 1209 Chapel Street, which
is used as dormitory and recitation building combined. There it is continuing
its excellent work and its unbroken history. In 1914 Arthur Burnham Wood-
ford, who had been its rector for a number of years, retired, and was succeeded
by George Blakeman Lovell, who had for some time previous been a member
of its faculty.

But not only was the seventeenth century the day of private schools, but in
large measure so were the eighteenth and nineteenth. New Haven has had other
distinctive schools, which have given it wide fame. Hopkins always headed
the list, but there was the Laneasterian School of John E. Lovell, established
in 1822, and following for thirty years a remarkable career during which it
graduated many of the men who made the New Haven of their day. The feature
of the Laneasterian s.ystem, as most persons by now have forgotten, was the^
employment of the older pupils to teach the younger. It seemed to work
well under so excellent a master as Mr. Lovell, and appealed to some of the
other educators of New Haven. The influence of it was felt to the extent
that it was tried in several of the public schools of New Haven about the
middle of the last century. It seemed to have its recommendations of econ-
omy, and it worked very well at that time, but it depended much on the domi-
nating spirit of the master. In those days of small numbers in the schools,
when they were simply country schools on a little larger scale, it had some
educational advantages. By the standards of edncalion which have for some
time prevailed it is, of course, hopelesslj' primitive.

There were other notable private schools in that earlier period. One that
cannot even yet be forgotten was the Russell Military School, known formally
as General Russell's Collegiate and Commercial Institute on Wooster Place.
It belonged to the time when Wooster Place was the fashionable center of resi-
dence, culture and to some extent of education. It was the city's only military
school, and its fame, in its time, spread far. It was somewhat later than that,
when Mrs. Sarah L. Cady's West End Institute, a fashionable and able "finish-
ing school" for girls (perhaps they did not use that term in its early days),
became famous and made educational prestige for New Haven.

The modern development of New Haven's public schools began, one may
judge, about 1860, when first the high school was established. Its location was
at the first near corner of Orange and Wall streets, where the building named
from James Hillhouse was erected by the city in 1871. It was a small beginning.
But the building was an ambitious one by the standards of that time, and in it
for the next three decades some of the best educational work of Connecticut was
done. Little could the founders of that high school in the '60s foresee the
time when New Haven would have a high school with a membership larger than
the average American college, with a force of teachers considerably larger than
Yale College had at the time.

138 A MODERN HISTORY OF xXEW HAVEN

Large as it is, the high school of today is only proportional to the public
educational system of New Haven. A glimpse of it is impressive in many ways.
This city of perhaps 175,000 people is served by a high school which really is
four schools in one. There is the high school proper, with its college prepara-
tory, classical, scientific and English courses; there is the manual training
school, with its scientific and general coupes; there is the commercial school,
soon to have its own separate building, with the varied courses which the
business college teaches; there are the Boardman apprentice shops, with their
classes in shop work, 'domestic science and the trades. To this, doubtless, should
be added the evening high school, which is yearly coming nearer to the presen-
tation, in necessarily somewhat abridged form, of all the advantages which the
day schools oft'er.

This high school lias a force of principal and six heads of departments, with
a student counsellor and a special principal in charge of the afternoon sessions.
There is a force of 114 teachers for the three departments, besides the Boardman
apprentice shops, and for tliese there are, in all, twenty-seven teachers. In all
departments of tlie liigh school there are this year 4,007 pupils. These taper
down l)y classes, from 1,412 in the first year class, 1,002 in the second year
class, to 738 in the junior class and 644 in the senior class. This last figure will
represent, approximately, the number in the graduating class. There are 178
pupils in the aiiprcntice shops, better known as the Trade School. There are
sixteen post-graduates.

There is a group of buildings in the high school system, and it is bound to be
greater. When the great building on York Square was erected in 1903, it was
expected to be ample for the school needs for years to come. AVithin less than
ten years it was foixnd hopelessly inadequate to accommodate all the pupils at
one session. It was planned to accommodate 1,562 pupils. It now has. as we
have seen, over 4,000. Though an addition accommodating 768 pupils in its six-
teen rooms was made in 1914, it was still necessary, as it had been three years
earlier, to resort to the expedient of double sessions. First the first year class
was made into an afternoon school, and by 1917 it was found necessary to divert
150 of the .second year pupils to this school. At the end of 1917 the superin-
tendent reported that the building had acconnnodated in the previous year
2,500 pupils, which he considered its limit.

The remainder of the 4,000, of course, were in the Boardman Manual Training
School Building on Broadway. Here the manual training courses are taken care
of, as well as the commercial department. A new building for this department
has been planned, but its construction is delayed. The greater portion of the
Boardman building is occupied by the pupils of the Trade School, who need
more room in proportion to their number.

So the problem of New Haven's growing high school has been solved for
the time. The division of the high school into local parts in different sections
of the city, which seemed at one time inevitable, has been, at least post-
poned. It has been hoped to still further postpone it by the formation of what

AND EASTERN NEW HAVEN COUNTY 139

is called the Junior High School. This is a separate school consisting of grades
seven, eight and uiue; that is, the last two years in the grammar school and
the first in the high school. This plan, discussed at some length by the super-
intendent in his last annual report as the most feasible means of relieving the
high school pressure, was expected to be tried out, possibly in the present year.
The plan intends the establishment, in all sections of the city, of a sufficient
number of these junior high schools to perhaps permanently relieve the pressure
on the central building.

The grammar and primary grades of the city are now served by forty-seven
buildings, in addition to the schools at the New Haven and St. Francis orphan
asylums. In them are 614 classrooms, with a total of 26,139 seats, to take care
of a .school registration of 27,242. The total number of teachers, including the
entire high school force, the teachers in the grammar, primary and kindergarten
grades, and the supervisors and assistants, was in 1917 820.

The largest school in New Haven is Hamilton Street, with thirty-one rooms'
and 1.523 pupils. Greene Street, at the corner of Wooster Square, comes next,
with nineteen rooms. 942 pupils. Ivy Street, at the corner of Ivy Street and
"Winchester Avenue, comes third, with 882 pupils. These are among the older
schools of the city. There are fourteen other schools each having the full eight
grades, ranging from 860 down to 158 pupils in number, and in age from the
historic Lovell School, built back near the middle of the last century, to Bar-
nard School, opened in 1913, out on the western edge of the city. Two schools,
the Dixwell Avenue, with five rooms and 164 pupils, and the school of St.
Francis Orphan Asylum, with eight rooms and 384 pupils, have only seven
grades. Seventeen have only six grades. These are mostly in districts, some
of them congested, where pupils are pi-one to leave school early. Three schools
in the Wooster Square district. Dante, Fair Street and Wooster, stop with the
fifth grade. Eight have only four grades, these being mostly subsidiary to
larger buildings in their district. The New Haven orphan asyhim school, being
restricted to children quite young, has only two grades. The schools of New
Haven offer a most favorable field for the study of the process of race amalga-
mation which means so much to New Haven. They reflect, at the same time,
the nature of the city's changing citizenship. They moreover give reassurance,
as has elsewhere been said, to those who fear that the task of making the raw
material into Americans is not being well performed. In these schools forty-five
different nationalities are represented. They are American, Armenian, Austrian,
Australian, Belgian, Bohemian, Canadian, Chinese, Cuban, Danish, Dutch,
Eg^-ptian, Engli.sh, Finnish, French, Galician, German, Greek, Hungarian,
Irish, Italian, Japanese, Lithuanian, Negro, Newfoundlander, Norwegian,
Philippine, Polish, Portuguese, Pru.ssian, Rumanian, Russian, Scandinavian,
Scotch, Serbian. Shetland Islander, Slavonian, South American, Spanish,
Swedish, Swiss, Syrian, Turkish, Welsh and West Indian.

Of the 27,029 children in the schools, 8,115, or less than one-third, may be
called American. Italv, not America, heads the list of nationalities with 8,576.

140 A MODEKN HISTORY OF NEW HAVEN

Theu follow American, 8,115 ; Russian, 4,486 ; Irish, 1,304 ; German, 926. There
are half as many Russians as Americans. Yet the mixture in the schools seems
hopeless. There is only one school in the city, the Dante, which is practically
a school of single nationality. Of the 437 there, 434 are Italians, two are
Americans and one is Russian. Italians largely predominate in seven other
schools, having from 58 to 97 per cent. These are Woostef, Fair Street, Hamil-
ton, Greene Street, Washington, Ezekiel Cheever and Eaton. In nine schools,
out of a total registration of 6,009, 4,725 are Italians. In four schools,
Zuuder, Hallock Street, Webster and Serantou Street, Russians predominate,
having a registration of 1,352 out of a total of 2,432.

There are marked shifts of this population as well. Schools in the old Welch
district, which were once largely Russian, now have a lai-ger number of Italians
than Russians. These are Cedar Street, Prince Street and Welch. But of
these two nationalities together there are 1,633 children out of a total of 2,235.
The Italian seems to be universal. In every school in the city he is represented
by from five to 1,294 children. The Russian, how-ever, is almost as widely dis-
tributed. The American manages to be represented in all but one of the schools
of the city, the small Greenwich Avenue School. In the last three years, the
number of Americans in the schools has increased 1.3 per cent, the Italians have
increased 13.5 per cent, the Russians have increased 11.9 per cent, the Irish
have decreased 16.1 per cent, the Germans have decreased 30.7 per cent. There
are other changes. Of the pupils now in the schools, 1,754 were born abroad.
But this is 1,642 fewer than for 1915, and 571 fewer than for 1916. This may
be accounted for, perhaps, by the recent checking of immigration. In the High
School there are thirty-one different nationalities. A little less than half the
total, or 1,822, are Americans.

The New Haven school organization now consists of a board of education
of seven members, appointed by the mayor, a superintendent, three a.ssistant
superintendents, a secretary of the board and an inspector of school buildings.
The members of the board, at the beginning of 1918 were: Leo H. Herz, presi-
dent of the board ; Henry A. Spang, H. ]M. Kochcrsperger, Dr. George Blumer,
Mrs. Percy T. Walden, William A. Watts and Joseph T. Anquillare. Frank
H. Beede has been .superintendent for the past eighteen years, succeeding Calvin
N. Kendall in 1900. The change from the system of supervising principals to
assistant superintendents was made in 1912, and had the immediate effect of
demoting, at least as to responsibility and salary, three of the veteran prin-
cipals and able educators of the school system, whose work had deserved for
them a better fate. The present assistant superintendents are Junius C. Knowl-
ton, Claude C. Rus.sell and John C. McCarthy. George T. Hewlett is the sec-
retary of the board, having ably served since 1903, when the late Horace Day
closed his labors after a service of forty-three years with the board. The in-
spector of school buildings is Dennis J. Maloney.

AND EASTERN NEW HAVEN COUNTY 141

The present principal of the High School is Charles Kirsehner, a native of
New Haven, a graduate of the school and of Yale, and an able executive and
educator, proved so by his service in the most trying period the school has so
far known. The heads of departments are: Classical, Alfred E. Porter; Com-
mercial. John D. Houston ; English, Susan S. Sheridan, one of the veteran teachers
of the school; Mathematics. Arthur E. Booth; Modern Languages, Thomas P.
Tayloi-. Janet M. Purdue is the student coimselor, and Ralph Wentworth is
principal in charge of the afternoon sessions.

The Boardman apprentice sliops, now forming a vitally important depart-
ment, not only of the Higli School, but of the whole New Haven system of
education, are now directed by Ralph 0. Beebe. This school, popularly known
as the Trade School, was established in 1913. and has, under wise foundation and
careful administration, made a record which has given it high distinction among
schools of its clas-s in the country. It was planned, not on the model of any
other trade school, but solely for New Haven's needs. Its central purpose was
to offer, to the large and rapidly growing numlier of New Haven boys and girls
whom the urge of economic necessity was driving into gainful occupations as
soon as the law would permit them to leave school, aid to choice of the kind of
work for which they were best adapted, and a direct fitting for that work. It
was to serve the further and not less essential purpose of offering an inducement
for a year or two years of further continuance in school, with the general edu-
cation and training that might -accompany the special education, of hundreds
who were liesitating between school and Avork. and liable to choose the latter
in following what seemed the line of least resistance.

The school was opened with Frank L. Glynn as director. Under his experi-
enced and progressive leadership, it at once took high rank among institutions
of its sort. There was at first opposition to it from organized labor bodies, who
suspected its effect as inimical to them. But discreet management has substan-
tially overcome this opposition, and all workers in all trades in New Haven now
pretty well understand that the school will be a great help to the proficiency of
their lines of work. In 1916 Mr. Glynn was called to a larger work in "Wisconsin,
and Robert O. Beebe, who had for some years been the assistant of Major Hewlett
in the office of the Board of Education, was made director. He has shown a
broad conception of the opportunities and purposes of the school, and has
excellently developed its courses.

The school functions now through twelve departments, each representing
an important trade or vocation. The one regularly containing the greatest
number of pupils is the department of machine shop practice, in which forty-
five boys are learning by actual work in well equipped machine shops to do
practically expert machine making. Their work is not merely practice. There
product is finished and salable, and finds a market, as well as, in some cases, an
actual advance demand. The income from this source alone makes a material
reduction in the cost of running the school. Next to this the most largely at-
tended branch is the girls' department, in which thirty-three pupils are learning

142 A MODERN HISTORY OF NEW HAVEN

dressmaking, millinery and cooking, as well as housekeeping and the highei
branches of domestic science. Twenty-three boys are in the drafting room.
Twenty are in the woodworking trades, which are a practical preparation for all
branches of carpentry and cabinet making. The electrical department has seven-
teen pupils, and teaches with practical experience all the leading branches of
applied electricity. There is a printing department, which had nine pupils last
year. This teaches practical printing, including the use of the linotype machine,
a good machine and an instructor being constantly available. This department
prints many of the papers and pamphlets used by the educational board and the
schools in their work. There is a class of seven in pattern making, a class of
seven in plumbing, of five in book binding, and of two in forging. This was
the first trade school in the country to open a department for the teaching of
painting and decorating. In that class there were ten boys in 1917. The mem-
bers of this class have done much of the work of this sort for the department
of schools whenever new rooms were opened or it was necessary to redecorate
old ones. As an instance, the last report of the Board of Education said: "On
November 9, 1917, the Board of Education held its first meeting in the new
offlees in the old county court house. The work of refini.shing these offices was
largely done by apprentices from the Boardmau apprentice shops."

Other reports within the past few years have shown that all the finished
niatci-ial produced and the work done liy apprentices from this school either
brings in or saves the city money amounting in the year to between $15,000
and $16,000, a very appreciable portion of its cost of maintenance.

Once in three months the department in salemanship of the school enrolls
a class of twenty-five members, composed of salesmen or women from depart-
ment stores, who are given efficient instruction in this essential art.

At present the number of those seeking instruction in the apprentice shops,
especially in some departments, exceeds the accommodations, and as soon as the
completion of the building for the commercial school takes this department out of
the Roai-dman Building, these vacated rooms will be made available for the
apprentice shops. The school is run on the plan of any industrial institution,
from eight in the morning till five in the afternoon on five days in the week, and
even the Saturday session is now being extended to all the day. It is kept in
session practically all the year, with the exception of part of a month in the
summer. The evening department, an increasingly important one, is now open
for the full six nights. The Saturday afternoon and evening sessions are held
to accommodate evening school pupils for whom there is not room at the regular
evening se.s.sions.

The evening schools of New Haven have changed in twenty years from being
merely missionary to definitely practical in their character. There is still the
familiar irregularity in their attendance, so that figiares of registration are
unsatisfactory and in a measure deceiving. But schools which at first were run
as social centers, where those who took the notion might come and go practically
as they pleased during the evening school session, now have taken on the char-

AND EASTERN NEW HAVEN COUNTY 143

acter of practical, efScient schools, with a definite course and required work.
Their season is comparatively short, but each year tliey grant formal diplomas
to those who complete the required course, and have their regular graduation
exercises. In the past year the demand for entrance to some branches of them
has been such that a registration fee of one dollar was demanded in the High
School and in the Boardman apprentice shops, as a guarantee of good faith
and serious purpose. In the past year classes have been conducted at the
Winchester Repeating Arms Company, and the prediction is officially made
that the time may come when evening and continuation schools will be eon-
ducted in all the large factories.

Some of the most important of the instruction in the New Haven schools
is directed by supervisors, each with his or her specialty. New Haven was one
of the first cities in the country to establish the teaching of vocal music in all
its grade schools, and the work done in that department for fifty years by him
who came to be the loved "music ma.ster, " Prof. Benjamin Jepson, attracted
national attention. Beginning with 1864, he developed a training system which
left its mark for the better on every pupil that passed through the schools.
He was able to make singers of only a few, but he gave those few an invaluable
start, and he improved all. The city's schools became famous for their musical
instruction, and it was always possible to raise at short notice a chorus of from
fift.v to two hundred school children to sing on any public or patriotic occasion.
Professor Jepson, at times in his career as music supervisor, conducted singing
classes in many of the towns around New Haven. He also developed an excel-
lent .series of school music readers, which is still in use in many of the schools
of the country. His work in the New Haven schools is continued by Supervisor
William E. Brown, with two a.ssistants.

The present plan not only develops chorus singing to the highest practicable
point, but gives some degree of attention to individual singing wherever
it seems desirable. It also provides instruction on the violin to many pupils
of the schools — as many as 300 from the fifth, sixth, seventh and eighth grades
in 1917. In the High School choinis work is especially developed by boys' and
girls' glee clubs, and instrumental ability is encouraged by a high school or-
chestra under competent instruction.

New Haven has made a most valuable feature of the teaching of drawing
and art in its schools under the supervision of Almond H. Wentworth. The
work is so conducted that even in eases where there is not the slightest natural
inclination in this direction, the mind of the pupil is arrested and fixed for a
time on this subject, and at least something is accomplished in the teaching of
good taste and an appreciation of the beautiful.

In some school systems penmanship may have become a lost art, but not in
New Haven. Supervisor Harry Houston has found just the points in which
penmanship is practical even in these days of typewriters and mechanical book-
keeping, and dwells on these points in his direction of writing. His own skill
and knowledge of the subject, developed in a series of school copy books which

144 A MODERN HISTORY OF NEW HAVEN

many schools of New England have adopted as standard, have given him an
almost national reputation in his specialty.

Henry J. Sehnelle, the present supervisor of physical training, has developed
his practically new department to a most significant degree. Something more
than just perfunctory school drills are given to the children. They are given
a practical groundwork in the art of good living, in the fundamentals of good
health. Under his direction leagues in baseball, football, basketball, track and
field sports have been organized in many of the schools. School yard play is
supervised, and the teachers are made competent phy.sical instructors. Even the
men principals have been enthused to the point of personal participation in
competitive sports.

Sewing has become more and more of a practical and applied subject of
late years in the schools, particularly under the present supervisor. Miss Jennie
R. Messer. Important instruction is given in things which every woman needs
to know, and given in such a manner that it has its lasting effect.

There are othei' leaders in the New Haven schools for the past twenty years
who should be mentioned, though they have been identified with no specialty.
Frank J. Diamond has been in this period principal of the Greene Street School,
and no teacher in New Haven has done a more valuable work just where the
tide of alien population has flowed strongest. In a school of 927 pupils, where
82 were born abroad, and 735 are of Italian parentage, with eighteen other
nationalities besides American represented, he and his loyal corps of teachers
show a composite product of true Americanism that is a credit to their work
and a reassurance to all who tremble at the effect of the alien strains in our
national blood. In another way, and with a different problem, Sherman I.
Graves at Strong School in Fair Haven has done as valuable a work. No teacher
in all our schools has finer ideals than he; none loves better the community of
his adoption. It was his dream to make this school a transforming community
center. He had made it a wonderful school when fire in 1911 destroyed his beauti-
ful building, but his hopes rose with the new one from the ashes. He has not been
able to do all he hoped to do. Untoward events have worked against him. But
the discerning know the worth of his faithful work. His school also is a melting
pot. with twenty-one nationalities among its 514 pupils, but fine is the gold it
turns out. The third of a trio of strong men wrestling with gi-eat problems is
David D. Lambert at Truman Street School, with 838 pupils in his charge,
122 of them born abroad, 281 of them Russian, 169 of them Italian, eighteen
other races represented, only 227 of them called American. He also has faithfully,
quietly, hopefully worked on. If he had no other reward than the sight of the
results he is accomplishing for the future of New Haven, he might well be content.

Perhaps the best tribute to teachers and pupils alike is a glimpse, in this
time of national crisis, of the unusual activities of the schools. In every instance
teachers have been loyal. There has been no hint of enemy propaganda, though
nearly all races are represented among the teaching force. Under such an in-
spiration, the pupils have been as loyal. They have worked, in and out of

AND EASTERN NEW HAVEN COUNTY 145

school, for the commou cause. The boys have cultivated war garcleus and farms,
and the girls have sewed and knitted for the Red Cross. There has been com-
mendable activity and hard work in the raising of money for various purposes.
The last report shows that i|fl88,720 worth of Liberty Bonds have been pur-
chased in the schools. Thrift stamps to the amount of .$13,912 were taken. The
contribution to the Y. M. C. A. was .$6,288, and 416 joined the senior and 3,004
the junior Red Cross. There were given $3,850 from the High School for the
Soldiers' and Sailors' Library Fund; $1,321.28 altogether for the relief of
French children, for the Knights of Columbus Fund and for Red Cross seals,
and $477.18 for various other causes. Over 20,000 knitted and sewed articles
have been given. The school gardening has been faithful, intelligent and en-
thusiastic. And by no means least if last, eight of the male teachers of the
High School have left their work to enter the war service of the United States.

Mention has elsewhere been made of the gradual development of the use of
the school buildings for other purposes and at other times than the sti-ict school
hours. School buildings have been opened, not only as community centers, but
for (lances, for Red Cross activities, for lectures on food conservation and
good citizenship, as study rooms in congested districts, where home advantages
were lacking to the pupils, for the use of exemption boards and as polling places.
This last use marks one of the greatest improvements in political procedure that
has come to New Haven in the past two decades.

The attendance at the New Haven schools has from the first more than kept
pace with the building facilities, notably so in the High School, as we have seen.
With fifty -six buildings in all now at the command of the department, the attend-
ance has been taken care of very well for the past year, without the addition of
more buildings. But more are in progress. Plans and specifications for a com-
mercial school building, accommodating 2,000 pupils, have been x>repared, and
contract awarded and work begun, but for various reasons it has been halted.
The city has also purchased a site for a new building in the Webster district,
at the northeast corner of Howe and Oak streets, where a building will be con-
structed a.s early as practicable.

Ill

Mention has elsewhere been made of the New Haven State Normal and
Training School, a part of New Haven's public school system, though maintained
by the state. It was established, as one of the state's teacher training schools,
in 1900, and under the guidance of Arthur B. Morrill and an excellent corps of
teachers, has since been contributing materially to the raising of the standard
of common school education in Connecticut. Working in conjunction with the
State Board of Education, the normal schools of Connecticut have steadily
been seeking to replace the untrained teacher, throughout the state, with the
graduates of these schools. As the quality of training given in these schools has
risen with every passing year, this effort has resulted in an increasing success,

Vol. I 10

146 A MODERN HISTORY OF NEW HAVEN

and all but a ver.v few of the schools of Connecticut are now supplied with
graduates from either the Williniantie, the New Britain, the New Haven or
the Daubury school.

Of these institutions the greatest success should be expected of New Haven,
because of its location in a great center of education, and because of the valuable
aid it gets from the New Haven schools. Four of the schools of the city, located
near the norma] school building, were set apart as "model" schools, the state
paying the excess salary necessary to secure superior teachers in all their rooms.
To these schools all second year pupils of the Normal School are sent on alternate
months, and given practical experience and criticism in teaching. The result
is as nearly an experienced product as it is possible for a mere school to turn out.
The City of New Haven has the first selection from each graduating class,
choosing from the New Haven pupils as many of those of highest standing as it
needs to fill prospective vacancies in its schools. But the school exists to supply
country as well as city vacancies, and country schools need the graduates most.
So it is the especial effort of some of the teachers to enthuse the pupils with a
love for the country school, and an appreciation of the opportunities for original
work and high influence which it offers. It shoiild be noted that this laudable
effort has not been without its marked success.

In many respects Westville has preferred to keep its own identity, and not
the least of these is in its school management. Of the almost 37,000 children of
school age now in the whole town of New Haven nearly 2,000 attend the schools
of Westville. The district has three handsome and modern sehoolhouses. The
Edgewood School, which takes care of the population of the newer portion of
Westville, is on Edgewood Avenue, not far from the point at which it ci-osses
West River, and is, ai>pai'ent!y. in the very edge of the Westville district. But
the district extends to the east of the river, and apparently well into the city.
It is a well built and finely appointed building, a ci-edit to the district.

The L. Wheeler Beecher Memorial School is the newest of Westville 's build-
ings, situated far to the opposite edge of the section, on the upper part of Blake
Street. It has seven rooms, and is in every way a modern building.

The Frances Benton Memorial School takes care of most of the older part

of Westville. and has eight rooms. It adequately completes Westville 's excellent

outfit of schools. But the section is growing fast in population, and Westville

knows that it will have to provide more schools at no very distant time.

William F. H. Breeze is at present the Westville superintendent.

The number of children attending the public schools in the year 1917 was

27,005. Besides these 4,18-1 were reported as attending ])rivate schools. Of

these a very large percentage were, of course, in the ])arochial schools, of which

there are seven: Sacred Heart, St. Boniface, St. Francis, St. Mary's Academy

and St. Mary's Parochial School, St. Peter's Parochial School and St. Rose's.

There are three other principal private schools, most of them for younger

children, doing excellent work. Of these the best known are the Gateway School,

ST. FRANCIS Kd.MAN ( A I IKM.H rill |;( ||. s( IKiHL AND Ki:( TdKY. XI'AV IIAVKN

ST. FRANXIS ORPHAX ASYI.L'^I. XEW HAVEX

AND EASTERN NEW HAVEN COUNTY 147

concluoted bj- Miss Alice Reynolds; Miss Mary S. Johnson's and the Barnes
School. The Hebrew Institute does an excellent special work.

Some twenty years ago, when the physical culture movement first became
popular, Dr. William G. Anderson, directoi' of the Yale gymnasium, started
a gymnastic training class for young ladies. It soon grew to a size which de-
manded a gymnasium of its own, and Doctor Anderson built one on York Street.
About 1907 it outgrew its quarters there, and Dr. E. Herman Arnold, who by
this time had taken the business over from Doctor Anderson, the Anderson
Gymnasiitm Company having been formed, moved it to a house which had been
purchased near the corner of Chapel Street and Sherman Avenue. Here the
enterprise 1 lossomed out as the New Haven Normal School of Gymnastics. Siuce
that time the company has acquired five buildings on the Chapel Street and
Sherman Avenue sides of this corner, and has built a large gymnasium, dining
hall and dormitory besides. It is said to have a high standing among the schools
of this iii.ture in the country, training young women to be physical directors,
and its graduates are in great demand.

The excellent instruction given by Joseph Giles, in his school in the Insur-
ance Building, is remembered by some whose educational course was finished
only a few years ago. Of tutoring schools New Haven always has, because of
the presence of the university, an abundance. Of these the most important is
the University School, which George L. Fox, long a well known New Haven
educator, conducts. The Booth Preparatorj^ School, and the Rosenbaum School,
which has departments both in New Haven and Milford, are among the other
schools of this class.

There are two notalJe private music schools, that of George Chadwick Stock
and the New Haven School of Music.

Of business schools New Haven has some progressive representatives. One
of the leaders, now making great strides in education of this sort, is the one
formerly known as the Yale Business College. At the beginning of this period,
when the chief advertisement if not the chief function of a business college
was to teach flowery penmanship, R. C. Loveridge made the beginning of its
fame. It prospered as the Yale Business College luider various managements,
and about 1907 it came into the hands of Nathan B. Stone, an able teacher and
a good organizer. In 1916 he changed its name to the Stone Business College,
and has continued it as a complete school of sterling business education which
is a credit to its name.

The Butler Business School, conducted for some years in the Y. M. C. A.
Building on Temple Street, has had a long and honorable existence, and grounded
hundreds of young people in efficient business practice. It is now conducted by
Sidney Perlin Butler. The Connecticut Business University has been for several
years conducted by Henry C. Tong, and is doing excellent work. The Stebbing
Commercial and Secretarial School, in the Chamber of Commerce Building, has
also a large business, and is said to be filling an excellent purpose in fitting for
its specialty.

CHAPTER XVII
NEW HAVEN'S LIBRARIES

TARDY APPEARANCE OF A PUBLIC LIBRARY, AND ITS EARLY HISTORY — ERECTION OF THE
NEW BUILDING THE PUBLIC LIBRARY'S BRANCHES AND USE

We raa.y imagine that the greater part of the reading of New Haveu previous
to the opening of the nineteenth century was done by the students and graduates
of Yale College. At any rate, the college library was made to suffice the com-
munity up to that time. There seems soon after to have been a sufficient demand
for books to promote the establishment of private societies for the purchase of
books which their members used in tuni. This was the crude formation of the
private library. There were two of these in 1815, the Mechanics' Library and
the Social Library. The members of the latter were very strict in their interpre-
tation of literature, for by their constitution no "novel, play or tale" could be
purchased e.xeept by a three-fourths vote of the members present. The two
liliraries together had a collection of books numbering 1,300 volumes. In 1826
tlie Young Men's Institute, another private library, was formed, and still exists.
It has a strong foundation and support, and an excellent popular library, fitted
to what its patrons believe to be their needs. Its location is at 847 Chapel
Street. It has 27,438 volumes, and its additions in 1916 were 764. Its librarian
is Abigail Dunn.

Under the impression, as are most of us, that the public librarv is a long
established New England institution, we learn with some surprise that in New
Haven it runs back only thirty-two years. Nor wa.s New Haven so comparatively
backward, for Bridgeport is the only city in the state that had one any earlier.
The position taken by New Haven was that Yale University, with its notably
large library, .supplied all the needs not met by the private institutions. So the
situation might have stood much longer than it did, had not New Haven found
a library benefactor, and one, strange to say, who had but recently come to dwell
in the city.

Philip Marett was a Boston merchant who had accumulated a fortune in
the Ea.st India trade, and when he was reidy to retire, showed his great dis-
crimination by choosing New Haven as the place for spending his leisure years.
His coming was about 1852, and from the beginning of his acquaintance with the

148

AND EASTERN NEW HAVEN COUNTY 149

city he never ceased to marvel that such an intellectual center as New Haven
had no public librarj- after the manner of Boston. He took no consequent action
for fifteen years, however, but in 1867 he drew his will, disposing of a fortune
of $650,000. Of that he gave one-tenth to the City of New Haven in trust,
its income to be u,sed "for the purchase of books for the Young Men's Institute,
or any public library which may from time to time exist in said city." Mr.
Marett died in 1869. but it was eleven years later before New Haven did any-
thing looking toward the active improvement of the opportunity which he had
opened.

In 1880 Henry G. Lewis was mayor, and he took the bull liy the horns.
That year be called a meeting of the citizens for the purpose of starting a
public library, that being the obvious action necessarily precedent to the utilizing
of a fund for the purchasing of books for such an institution. At that meeting
$1,600 was pledged, and citizens donated 300 books for a start. The city wa-s
asked to furnish quarters for the library. The Court of Common Council, ac-
cordingly, graciously accepted the offer "to establish and maintain a free
library," and granted the use of a room or rooms in the old State House for
such a purpose. The old State House in 1880 was not in a condition to make it
ideal for library use, but it was at least a local habitation.

Mayor Lewis at once appointed a committee to go ahead, making the number
encouragingly thirteen. The committee determined to undertake the raising
of $100,000, by dividing the city into districts, and setting 400 canvassers at
work. We may imagine that this ta.sk was a much greater one than that, thirty-
five years later, of securing two and one-half times that sum for the New Haven
Orphan Asylum. At any rate, the effort seems to have netted at the time only
$5,535 — in pledges only. However, the committee went ahead, put their 300
books in a room in the State House, and opened their library, with George
Douglas Miller as librarian. But that was a ridiculously small collection for the
time, and the most of the readers in the community, we may imagine, preferred
to pay a little for the greater facilities of the Young ]\Ien's Institute. At all
events, financial troubles came, and the required money came not. so the effort
was abandoned after an indifferent year or so, and the precious 300 books were
turned over for safe keeping to the New Haven Colony Historical Society.

It was nearly five years before anything more was done. In 1885, mere pride
moved some of the citizens who realized that it was a shame for a city of
75,000 people, with a library fund at its disposal, to be without a public library.
Perhaps nothing would have immediately resulted, even then, if the Young
Men's Institute had not precipitated matters. It had a claim, it will be re-
membered, on the ]\Iarett legacy. So to avoid complication, its directors voted to
appoint a committee of five to confer with a city committee on the feasibility of
turning the institute library over to the city, on condition that it be made a free
public library. The Court of Common Council was petitioned to appoint such
a committee, and Councilmen Burton Mansfield, George D. Watrous, Fitzpatriek
and Tuttle, and Aldermen Whitney, States and Goebel were chosen. The com-

150 A MODERxN HISTORY OF NEW HAVEN

itiittce seeurcd the authorization of a bond issue of $100,000 for the library pur-
pose, and a sub-committee was appointed to complete the deal with the directors
of the Young Men's Institute. But the matter hung fire for a year, and no
tangible results appeared.

Meanwhile, A. Maxcy Hiller of the Council drew up aud had passed a reso-
lution inquiring why the contract had not been made in accordance with the
Institute offer, and the president of the Council appointed Mr. Hiller and
Councilman J. Rice Winchell a committee to answer the question by investiga-
tion. They saw President Pardee of the Institute, and learned that a contract
was being drawn up, and would soon be presented to the city for acceptance.
It was presented several months later. It provided that the Young Men's Insti-
tute should lease all its books and property to the city for ten years; that the
city should pay all the cost of maintaining the library; that the Y^oung Men's
In.stitute should have a majority on the Iioard of directors; and that the contract
might be renewed or dissolved at the pleasure of either party at the expiration
of the ten years.

There were reasons why this did not seem to the Council a good plan for
the city. Some discerning members saw wherein this fell short of tieing a free
pnl)lic library. The outcome was that the Council amended the contract so as to
provide that if the Young Men's Institute turned its propcrt.y over to the City of
New Haven, it should be permanently, not for a term of ten .years, with a
string attached. Whereupon the directors of the Institute withdrew their offer
and contract, and voted that their library should continue to be a private in-
stitution. Such it is up to the present time, serving an excellent purpose
and doing a good work for those who sufficiently appreciate a good library to
pay a small annual sum for its privileges.

But this did not get a free public library for New Haven. The matter
had been sufficiently agitated, however, so that public sentiment warranted
the Council in going ahead with the matter, which it did, under the leader-
ship of Councilmen Hiller and Winchell, to whom due credit should be given.
The fonner at once introduced a resolution providing that the city establish
a free public library under the statute laws, and it was passed with an amend-
ment that the number of directors be ten. Therewith went an appropriation
of $13,000 to start the library, and the thing was really begun.

The first board of directore, appointed by the Hon. George F. Holcomb,
who had succeeded the Hon. Henry 6. Lewis as mayor, consisted of these
men : His Honor, the Mayor, James N. States, Charles Kleiner, Charles S.
Mersick, Josepii Porter, Prof. Charles S. Hastings, Burton Mansfield, Hon. John
H. Leeds, Frank L. Bigelow and Cornelius T. Driscoll. Mr. Leeds was chosen
president of the board, and Burton Mansfield secretary and treasurer. Willis
K. Stetson was cho.sen librarian, and has continued to sei've up to this time,
an honored period of thirty-two years, for this foundation was laid in 1886.

The matter of site was the first problem. The old State House was about
to he torn down. The New Haven Colony Historical Societv, which had the

r;
B

AND EASTERxX NEW HAVEN COUNTY 151

few books, had then no facilities which it could offer the city. After some
search, rooms in the Sheffield Building on Chapel Street, between Orange and
State, were decided on as most available, and the directors took a ten years'
lease of them. There the library was opened to the public on the 21st day
of February, 1887. Its begiiuiing was small, but its prosperity has ever since
been continuous. There is abundant evidence that New Haven appreciated
its long delayed free library privilege.

But it wanted also a building. The days of second-floor libraries, in rented
rooms, were past. So within two years we find the directors deciding to take
advantage of the deferred privilege of a $100,000 bond issue to secure the
building. The Chapel Street quarters, we are told, had become wholly inad-
equate, I)ecause of the demand for library privileges. There seems to have
been little serious thought of building, however. That would take time, and
there was the now abandoned Third Church Building, admirably situated, and
offering facilities which could be made available at the expenditure of a com-
paratively small amount of time and money. The property was purchased by
the city in 1889. The purchase price was $71,000, and good .judges estimated
that at that time it was worth at least $90,000. It had not, of course, depre-
ciated any in value when nearly thirty years later the city disposed of it jointly
to the United States Government and the Second National Bank. The govern-
ment building and the bank building together take up the space of the old
library. In this remodeled church building, which, all things considered, made
a good library building, the New Haven Public Library found a home in 1891,
and was opened to the public on January 2.

Meanwhile, two years earlier, the last heir of Philip ilarett had passed
away, and the tenth of his property was to come to the City of New Haven,
"to bny books for the Young Men's Institute or any public library which may
from time to time exist." The state of feeling between the directors of the
Young Men's Institute and the directors of the young public library was not
then, as we may imagine, of the best. The former felt that their claim in
this money was too good to be overlooked, and brought suit to compel the
City of New Haven to spend this money for their library instead of for the
public library. The suit was not. however, fought out in the courts. The
more dignified plan was agreed upon by both parties of submitting it to the
decision of the Supreme Court of Connecticut. Ex-Governor Charles R. Inger-
soll argued the case for the Young Men's Institute, and Judge William K.
Townsend and Burton Mansfield for the City of New Haven. The .judges
decided unanimously that the newly established free public library was
entitled to the income of the fund, and the city has so used the money ever
since.

The new library was not, however, to bear the Marett or any name except
that of the City of New Haven. Due credit is given to the donor of the book
fund by a book plate in every volume bought with it, however. New Haven
had founded the librarv, late as the action was, and New Haven had provided

152 A MODERN HISTORY OF NEW HAVEN

the building. When the pureliase and remodeling of the old ehnrch had been
completed, the library board had $4,456.28 left. It had been struggling along,
in its old quarters, with an appropriation of about $3,000 a year. AVhen the
library was first opened, in the rented quarters on Chapel Street, it had
3,500 books with which to supply the reading needs of a city of 85,000 people.
It was necessary to send each book around the circuit three times a mouth
to meet the demand. Extra books were at once purchased from an appropria-
tion of $3,000, but these were inadequate. It was not until the new quarters
were .secured and the Jlarett fund made available that the library was able
to begin to keep up with the legitimate demands of the New Haven public.

Those demands were never relaxed. The community had waited rather over-
long, and the people were hungry for good reading. The circulation steadilj;
and rapidly increased in the new building. It has continued to increase ever
since. It has developed along other lines than the mere drawing of books.
It was planned, of course, to open a reading room as soon as the building was
refitted, but the directors did not anticipate the extensive use of it which im-
mediately developed. As early as 1893 the directors reported that the de-
mands of the public in this respect had caused them to make plans for a
lai'ger reading room or rooms. The next j'ear those plans were carried out,
and their extent may be inferred from the fact that $3,500 was spent. But
even this was not long adequate, and a separate periodical room had to be
opened the next year, what had lieen the church lecture room on the second
floor being utilized.

It was in 1894 that the separate children's room was opened, the library
being among the first of the country in this improvement. This made possible
another improvement, inaugurated the following year, namely, the open shelf
plan. At that time all the shelves of the library were thrown open to the
adult iisers, and they were permitted to select for themselves. The librarians
reported the plan to be a success. The losses, they said, were small, and easily
replaced, while the advantages were very material, both in encouraging the
use of the library in the freest sense, and in the saving of labor for the at-
tendants. That open shelf plan is continued with success up to the present,
though the more intricate layout of the stacks in the new building requires
considerable assistance from those familiar with the library, and some depart-
ments are of such a nature as to nmke the open shelf plan impracticable. It
is recognized, however, that there is a great gain from the viewpoint of at-
tracting the public in the degree of freedom allowed in public access to the
shelves.

But the extent of the library had been growing also, and in 1897 more
room was required. This was secured by the comparatively simple expedient
of extending a floor from one side gallery across to the other in the main room,
at the front part of the building. Still more room was needed in 1902, and
an extensive book stack was built. It was found nece.ssary to add to this three
years later, and not long after that the librarian was lamenting that the

AND EASTERN NEW HAVEN COUNTY 153

need of a new building was very pi-essiug, and until it came the library would
be increasingly crippled with its work. There then seemed be a poor pros-
pect of it. The library board wa.s forced, because the city's financial demands
were so growing in other directions, to live a sort of hand-to-mouth existence,
and so many bond issues were demanded that there seemed no hope of getting
one for a new libraiy building such as New Haven would require. The ilarett
fund could be used only for the purpose of books. The New Haven Public
Library was greatly in need of another benefactor.

Unexpectedly such a benefactor appeared when in October, 1906, the di-
rectors received a communication from Mrs. ^lary E. Ives. It contained the
suggestion that the city accpiire the Bristol property, at the northeast corner
of Elm and Temple streets, and the offer, if the city would do this, to build
thereon and present to the city "a handsome fireproof building for a public
library." The letter further said that, if this offer should be found acceptable,
a plan mutually satisfactory would be adopted, and a sum of money placed in
the hands of the writer's attorne.y, George D. Watrous, "sufficient to con-
stiaict a building which shall be an ornament to the city and worthy of the
site."

The directors did not delay. Two days later they voted to request the
Board of Aldermen to provide the site for the building in accordance with
^Irs. Ives's suggestion; to inform the board that as soon as the present library
building and the land connected with it could be disposed of, they would refund
to the city the sum received therefor: that a committee of five be appointed
to draw up a resolution of thanks to Mrs. Ives, and to present it to her, suit-
ably engrossed, as a mark of appreciation of her generous gift.

On Novemlier 17, it was further voted that a copy of Jlrs. Ives's letter be
tran.smitted to the Board of Aldermen, with a communication representing that
in the .judgment of the directors the gift should be accepted, the suggested
site approved and steps at once be taken for the purchase of the property. It
'was further voted that the sale of the premises then used for a public library
be attended to as soon as possible, and the proceeds applied to the payment for
the new site.

The Board of Aldermen two days later received the communication, granted
unanimous consent for innnediate action, and unanimously accepted the gift
on behalf of the city. A committee was appointed to draft resolutions of
thanks, and the matter of site and sale of the present property was referred
to another special committee.

On December 10. the aldermen formally ordered that the Bristol property
be approved as a site for a new librarj' building under the terms suggested
by Mrs. Ives, and that the library directors be authorized to sell the old Third

154 A MODERN HISTORY OF NEW HAVEN

Church Building. Suitable resolutions of thanks to the donor were at the
same time adopted.

It seemed clear to the directors that the surroundings of the proposed
building would ))e greatly improved if the city might own the space clear to
the grounds of the new county court house at the corner of Elm and Church
.streets, which was at the time taking form and comeliness. To do this it
would be necessary to obtain the Trowbridge property, adjoining the Bristol
property on the east. A committee wa.s appointed for thi.s purpose on
December 26 of the same year (1906). and reported that this could be
obtained for $75,000. Accordingly, tliis purchase was recommended by the
aldermen. The Board of Aldermen, on February 11 of the following year,
authorized the purchase of the property.

The committee chosen by Mrs. Ives to secure plans and designs for the
new building consisted, in addition to her attorney, George D. Watrous, of
Prof. John F. Weir, Burton Man.sfield, George Dudley Seymour, Former Lieu-
tenant Governor Samuel F. ]\lerwin, Mayor John P. Studley and Samuel R.
Avis. Mr. Merwin died before much of the committee's work was done, and
his place was not filled, ilr. Avis, chairman of the board, was chosen by the
library directors. Mayor Studley went out of office before the building was
completed, and was replaced by his successor, Mayor Martin.

Cass Gilbi-rt of New York, eminently (|ualified as an architect, but chosen
with especial appropriateness because at that time he was engaged, with
Frederick Law Olmsted, in a survey of New Haven for a report on city im-
provement, was appointed to prepare the designs for the new building. He
could be trusted to make them fully in harmony with the surroundings, present
and anticipated, of the Green. The plans presented called for a building of
brick, with marble trimmings, foundation and pillars, harmonizing as com-
pletely as possible witli tlw United Church on the one side and the County
Court House on the other.

This building was completed early in 1911, and dedicated that spring. Its
marble had come from Vermont and its bricks from North Haven. It did not
prove to be the showy building that some had expected, but that it harmonizes
with its surroundings and fits in with the traditional architecture of New Haven'
no well informed person denies. In construction it is of the highest class in all
respects, and it is strictly fireproof. In the main l)uilding there are three floors
and in the stack building six floors. Passing up the broad and easy marble steps
one enters an imposing lobby which leads to the delivery room, forty-five feet
square. On the right hand or east side of the delivery room is the reference and
periodical reading room, a light and altogether attractive place where the library's
reference works are arranged, fitted with ample tables and seating for patrons.
The open shelf room, corresponding in size to this, is on the Temple Street side
of the building. On the second floor are the newspaper reading room on one side,
and on the other a room of equal size designed a.s an art exhibition room, or for
a place of public assembly.

AND EASTERN NEW HAVEN COUNTY 155

One room of the greatest importance, of wliit-h tlie lil)rary management and
New Haven are justly proud, is the children's room. This is a light and airy
apartment on the ground tloor, with entrance from Teniple Street, designed for
the special use of the children. It is 99 by 24 feet in size, making it one of the
largest children's rooms in the country. In this part of the l)uilding are the
books designed for the exclusive use of the children, and their reading and refer-
ence rooms. This makes one of the finest and most attractive parts of the build-
ing, of signal importance because of the inducement which it offers to children
to use the building. If there is, as every intelligent person believes, potent
educational virtue in a public library, then the children of New Haven, its citi-
zens in years to come, have exceptional facilities to fit them for intelligent use-
fidness.

The remaining rooms of the liuilding are chiefly for administratiun purposes.
There is a bindery 44 feet square, a shipping room 25 by 18, staff locker rooms
and lunch room, a packing room 44 by 27, a cataloguing room 29 by 18, a conven-
ient librarian's room, a directors' room 18 by 12 and several storerooms. There
are boiler and engine rooms and a ventilating apparatus in the sub-basement.

To the regret of all New Haven, the generous donor of this building did not
live to see its completion. Mrs. Ives died during the winter of 1907-1908. The
directors passed appropriate resolutions, recording their great sorrow for the
city's loss of a noble citizen, and their great gratitude to her for having made
possible at length a suitable and impressive home for the public library.

Ill

New Haven lias grown materially since this new building was finished, but
the use of the lilirary has increased even faster. Ten years ago the number of
books was about 70,000, and the circulation over 300,000 a year. Now the num-
ber of books is 125,000, and the circulation over 500,000. The income of the
library in 1909, including appropriation and incidental receipts, was $20,000.
It is now about $50,000.

Before the first Strong School was burned, largely through the efforts of
Sherman I. Graves, its principal, always an earnest worker for the good of Fair
Haven, a branch of the library was established in a room of that school. Its
patronage was liberal from the first, and fully demonstrated the wisdom of its
establishment. It had awakened Fair Haven to its need of library privileges in
that section. It was the hope of Mr. Cxraves that when Strong School was rebuilt,
it would contain, in addition to many other features, ample provisions for a
library. It early became apparent that this was not to be, and the citizens of
Fair Haven made other plans. About this time came an overture from the
Carnegie Corporation of a building if Fair Haven would provide the site. It was
not pleasing to all concerned to make any part of New Haven the beneficiary of
the Carnegie Fund, it being against the natural independent spirit of the town.

156 A MODERN HISTORY OF NEW HAVEN

but after miidi disciissiou and delay the offer was accepted. A site was secured,
at the cost of $5,000, on Grand Avenue near Ferry Street, and there a building
approved by the Carnegie Corporation was started in 1917. It brings great relief
to Fair Haven, for the provisional quarters had long before become uncomfort-
ably small. There are now four other branches. Tlie largest is in the Congress
Avenue district. Westville completed a handsome building several years ago,
and lias now a flourishing library. Near the end of 1916 the Winchester Repeat-
ing Arms Company offered quarters for a branch library in its district, and there
is a well used branch in Lowell House. The circulation in these branches for
1916 was: Congress, 60,157; Fair Haven, 51,226; Westville, 34,749; Lowell
House, 13,056 ; Dixwell and the otlier branches, 4,093. The present provision for
this Dixwell branch is only temporary. In this rapidly growing part of the town
there will be a permanent demand for a library, with its own building. There is
a substantial movement for tlie purchase of a site for a Carnegie building, and it
is probable that before long New Haven will have among its branches a second
Carnegie library.

The school circulation, partly estimated, was 57,000 for 1916, bringing the
total considerably over half a million for that year. It has shown a retarding
of i)icrease since, for many persons have had other things to busy them than read-
ing. The present number of card holders is not far from 38,000, and the number
increases at the rate of about 12,000 a year.

Fiction still has a good lead in the classes of books demanded, though it has
in the aggregate fairly a majority of the vote. In the Lowell House library,
where all the readers are cliildren. except for the few foreign language books read
by adults, literature and miscellany is a close second to fiction, and half as many
books on sociology and education are i-ead. The juvenile circulation in the main
library and in the branches averages about half the adult, except in the Congress
branch (an addition to Lowell House just mentioned), where it is double the
adult. At Fair Haven, twice as many books of travel were read by adults as at
Congress. In the main libran' the books most in demand by adults, next to
fiction, were foreign books, literature and miscellany, the useful arts, and the fine
arts, including recreation. At Fair Haven and Westville there was a great
demand for bound volumes of the magazines. Books on sociology, including
education, had a great demand at the main library, but a much greater propor-
tional demand at Congress and Lowell House.

A recent development of the library .service has been the opening of summer
branches in July and August in four schoolrooms, Dante, Scranton Street, LoveU
and Ivy. They are open twice a week in the afternoons. They have been used
mostly by the children, though adult books have been included. It was not the
original intention, but it was found that by affording an opportunity to the
children to come to the schoolhouses in summer for reading, the library might
serve a valuable purpose.

The annual expense of maintaining tlie library is now approximately $50,000.

AND EASTERN NEW HAVEN COUNTY 157

Of this about $40,000 comes from tlie city appropriation, over $2,000 from fines
and fees, and the balance from a number of minor sources. The Marett Fund
for the purchase of books is an account by itself, and provides about $3,250 a
year. There is a considerable annual bulk of accessions fi-om gifts of books,
periodicals and newspapers.

CHAPTER XVIII
THE CIVIC DEVELOPMENT

ORIGIN AND WORK OF THE CIVIC FEDERATION — OLD AND NEW HISTORY OP THE CHAM-
BER OF COMMERCE — SOME CONTRIBUTORY ORGANIZATIONS

It has appeared from various facts tciuched iijion in the foregoing pages that
somewhere about the dawning of the twentieth century New Haven began to have
an awakening to its possil)ilities, its power and its responsibility, and consciously
to grapple with the task revealed. It was not without some machinery of organi-
zation that this was brought about. A community made up of able, alert, consci-
entious individuals bad fallen into the fault of remaining too individualistic,
and developing little of effectual harmonious effort. It had some organizations
which it was not using, it needed others — or at least there were those who thought
it did.

Mention has been made of such organizations, of which the Civic Federation
and the Chamber (if Commerce are examples. The former was the growtli of the
needs of the time ; the latter was an old and partly dormant organization, whose
functions had been conceived to be limited by the "customary duties of such
organizations." Because the Civic Federation came first into effectual operation
for the real advancement of New Haven, as well as because it was and is dis-
tinctly civic ill its plan, it merits mention first in the order. It was the best and
in some senses the first expression of the desire of progressive New Haven men
to work together and unite others, societies and individuals, for the betterment
of New Haven. There were so many things to do which, being everybody's busi-
ness had become nobody's business that some tangible form of society was neces-
sary as a workintr medium. The Civic Federation has proved that society.

The village improvement society, common in New England and elsewhere,
probal)ly furnished the germ of the idea. The things to be done were plain
enough. New Haven needed better streets, better sidewalks, better housing condi-
tions. It needed some attention to building lines, better sanitary regulations.
Some things needed to l^e done for the improvement of the public health which
somebody must agitate as a preparation for the work of the Board of Health.
Conditions of which these are examples sounded the call for a society civic, not
commercial, aiming for the moral and not alone for the material improvement of

158

CHAMBER OF COMMERCE BUILDIX(i. NEW HAVEX

AND EASTERN NEW HAVEN COUNTY 159

New Haven. The eall liad been answered before this, but not in a united way.
The city liad a number of civie societies, caeli working for its local end, and in a
neighborhood way. AYlien the need for .some union of action became too
apparent to be disregarded, they were loosely joined in a federation called The
Associated Civic Societies of New Haven. And at ordinary times each proceeded
to operate in its little circle. The nature of these societies was various. Some
were civie, some were for business, others were charitable or religious, still others
were of the nature of labor organizations. They were relics of the days of New
Haven's rural constitution.

And New Haven had become cosmopolitan, urban ; it had grown into a sense
of great responsibilities and the need of united action. There were many pro-
gressive New Haveners who realized that the time had come for the making of
better macliinery. They agitated the matter of forming an effective and wieldy
civic body. They called a meeting for sucli an end. This was on JIareh 20, 1908,
at tlie Graduates' Club. Unfortunately, only three citizens thought well enough
of the matter to respond, but fortunately they were citizens worth while and un-
terrified by the smallness of their number. They were the Rev. Artemas J.
Haynes, the brilliant and beloved pastor of the United Church from 1901 to 1908,
who within five months was to meet a mysterious and tragic death in a Cape Cod
lake ; Prof. Charles F. Kent, who was to be the first president of the new organi-
zation, and Charles S. DeForest. They made a beginning. Other meetings, bet-
ter attended, followed. The result was the organization of The Associated Civic
Societies of New Haven into the Civie Federation of New Haven.

The societies thus merged were not rudely deprived of their identity, how-
ever. There was formed, as a sort of holding body, the Federated Council of One
Hundred, presumably to represent in a way the various societies which had been
merged. This council preserved a sort of existence for about three years. It was
composed of representative citizens, who did good work and advertised the new
organization considerably. It has been called, in reference to that time, "the
right arm of the federation." Having served its purpose, it was "discharged
with thanks" when the federation adopted its constitution of 1912, for no men-
tion of it was made in that document.

Profes.sor Kent, who was very active in the formation of the society, was made
its first president. He was followed by Dean Henry Wade Rogers, then of the
Yale Law school. He was followed for two years by Walter Camp, and for the
past five years Dr. Charles J. Bartlett of the Medical school has most efficiently
led the work.

It was evident when the Civic Federation was formed that the time had come
in New Haven for the employment of a permanent, paid executive secretary to
secure results. The choice fell on Robert A. Crosby, and for the following five
or six years he was the constant, consistent co-ordinator of all the activities of
the federation. He had the highest enthusiasm for its possibilities, and under
his effort it acquired an impetus which has drawn to it many of the most earnest
citizens, and held their interest and support to the end of effective service. In

160 A MODERN HISTORY OF NEW HAVEN

connection with his service for the federation, both :Mr. and ]\Irs. Crosby devoted
themselves to Lowell House, a social settlement peculiar to New Haven, and their
influence there will long be remembered. Many were the interests and circles in
New Haven which sincerely regretted Mr. and Mrs. Crosby's departure for a
larger field in New York in 1915.

It was about 1910 that the federation began so to find itself as to undertake
reforms of city-wide magnitude, and its showing in the seven or eight years fol-
lowing was one which abundantly justified the labor of its formation and nurture.
One of the first prol)loms of this class which it attacked was that of building lines
in New Haven. Legal experts, such as the federation has always been able to
command among its membership, had called attention to conditions which were
astounding in their discouragement of anything like central symmetry of streets
and uniformity of street lines. New Haven had, like Topsy, ".just growed," and
shocking had become its abnormalities. Central streets showed a lack of definite-
ness in their building lines which afforded the' widest range of exercise of the
greed of those who were so unpatriotic as to crowd out in front of others, the
true location of even the street lines was very uncertain, in some cases, and the
widening of streets or the creation of uniformity in fronts or lines seemed out
of the question. This was to be expected, perhaps, in a city whose roots of con-
fusion went back to the indefinite old surveys of 1640. But it was found that in
streets whose carving out of farm lots had taken place within two decades, the
conditions were getting almost as bad.

One of the first public actions, then, of the newly organized Federated Coun-
cil of One Hundred was to appoint a committee consisting of John K. Beach and
George D. Watrous, attorneys, to investigate this subject of street and building
lines, and to return some recommendation. That committee reported early in
1909, and its report was published in September of the same year. It embodied
a l)rief general statement of the principles of establishment of building lines, as
defined by the courts of Connecticut. The basic trouble with the situation in
New Haven, the committee found, was that a great many of the supposed build-
ing lines had not been established in accordance with the fundamental require-
ments of notice and assessment of benefits and damages. Others had failed to
comply with the mode of procedure required by the city charter. The only way
to find out whether a certain building line was or was not valid was to look up
the records of its establishment — if these could be found — and discover whether
or not its creators had complied with the fundamental law and with the charter.
On this subject in general the report .said :

"It is said that most, if not all, of the building lines adopted since the early
'70s have been properly established, and that those adopted prior to that time
are of doubtful validity. If this is true it would follow that the doubt in ques-
tion matches precisely to those building lines which are now the most important."

The report then proceeded to point out the chief points on which the impor-
tance of street and building lines depend, and made five recommendations:
That a systematic examination of the records of the establishment of building

AND EASTERN NEW HAVEN COUNTY 161

Hues in the priucipal business and residence streets be made; that invalid or
doubtful lines be re-established by due process of law; that new building lines,
looking to the future, be established in certain streets ; that emphasis be placed
on the recent opinion of the corporation counsel, a copy of which was annexed
to the report, to the end of deterring the aldermen from making exceptions to
established building lines; that if that should fail, such legal or other steps as
might be necessary be taken to prevent further abuse in the matter of building
lines.

The opinion referred to was a plain statement of the law, and of the power
of the city in the restriction of building lines.

The Buildings, Streets and Shade Trees Committee of the federation exam-
ined the report and discussed the matter in many meetings. Realizing its
importance and magnitude, they arranged for joint sessions with the Town
and City Improvements Committee of the Chamber of Commerce. It was agreed
to follow out as far as possible the suggestions of the report, and to bring the
whole matter as fully as possible to the attention of the citizens of New Haven.
It cannot be said that this resulted in immediate improvement of the condition
of building and street lines. Nor can it be said that they are what they should
be even now. The mistakes of two and three-quarters centuries are not corrected
in a decade. But it has been the work of the federation to present the facts.
The facts have set some of the people to thinking, and a start has been made. New
Haven has in this achievement a promise that it will do better in building lines,
and the results already show on the newer streets. Some day it may. at great
expense, undo some of the bad work in the central streets.

Meanwhile, this same committee had undertaken to enlighten New Haven
as to another evil, whose remedy must come from without. New Haven's post-
ofBee, outwardly behind the times, was inwardly a menace to the health and
lives of the half a hundred or more workers within, a plant from which good
work in so important a task as the distribution of the incoming, and the accurate
despatch of the outgoing mail ought not to be expected. It was so crowded
as to hamper the workers. The ventilation was inadequate. The rooms were
lacking in proper cleanliness and were effectual promoters of disease. If the
city could not have a new building — and the possibility seemed at that time
remote — it should have more room and better arrangement, at least better
sanitary conditions, on the old site. It did not take long to find out these facts.
They were promptly published in a report issued in January, 1910. 'it was
a fair and effective presentation of "The New Haven Postoffice Building
Problem." The effect of it was not as slow in coming as might perhaps have
been expected. Washington promised a new building— after further persua.sion
by citizens in and out of the federation. Meanwhile, it arranged for immediate
relief in the shape of some added "wings" to the already unshapely brown
stone building. But the effect of more room was fairly well attained, and there
was some cleaning up inside. In overdue time the new building itself has come,
though its completion has been a tediously slow process, and its occupancy is

Vol. I 1 1

162 A MODERN HISTORY OF NEW HAVEN

still delayed. It is uot too much to claim for the federation that in the realiza-
tion of this consummation it has materially helped.

A reform of another sort, in process at the same time, was being attempted
by the Federated Council of One Hundred, working in conjunction with the
New Haven Pastors' Union. It illustrated how the work of this society was
bound to reach beyond New Haven. The Pastors' Union had taken the lead
in the discovery that the government of New Haven County, and the manage-
ment of its affairs, were not such as to meet the approval of sensible and
moral citizens. The pastors believed this a matter in which the voice of the
laymen should be heard, and had laid the facts before the representative citizens
included in the Council of One Hundred. The result was a "Communication
from the New Haven Civic Federation's Council of One Hundred and the New
Haven Pastors' Union Concerning the Government of New Haven County,"
issued in September, 1910. It revealed many things which might not be expected
to meet the approval of good citizens, in the manner of administering the affairs
of New Haven County. Some of them were news to a good many citizens, though
they had to admit that they were, as voters in the county, in part responsible
for them. It cannot be said that there was any immediate revolution in county
affairs as a result of this report. But there have not been lacking, in the years
since, evidences that the people of New Haven County were set to thinking by
its statements. Some other deliverances with which the federation has since
followed it have served to keep the matter in the public mind, and some valuable
changes in county processes are pending, as a result, it may confidently be said,
of the agitation.

One specific presentation, immediately following in November, 1910, was the
"Report on County Affairs by the Special Commission of the Council of One
Hundred." This touched on certain phases of New Haven County's .system
of business and political management more definitely than did the previous
document. It was the attempt to present, as fairly and free from animus as
possible, county conditions as they were. What was presented, to be sure, was
bound to be taken by certain politicians, particularly the county commissioners
and their creators, as personal, but the investigators were unconcerned about
that. The effect of the report was to show in a clear light the lack of effective-
ness and economy in New Haven's present county system, and to suggest what
the citizens ought to do about improving it. As has been said, they are thinking
about the matter.

The following January, as a result of some very careful work by the Tene-
ment House Committee, of which Rev. J. Edward Newton was chairman, an
excellent report on "Improved Housing for Wage Earners" wa.s presented.
The survey on which this was based had been made by skilled investigators, who
went through over one thousand New Haven apartments. It embodied some
very specific recommendations for the improvement of the undesirable conditions
found, several of which have since been worked out not only in prngi-e.ssive local
ordinances but in state laws.

AND EASTERN NEW HAVEN COUNTY 163

In April, 1912, the Committee ou Buildings, Streets and Shade Trees shaped
some careful and expert observations and findings into a report on ' ' The Plant-
ing and Care of Street and Highway Trees." It was a timely aud needed
remuider to those responsible for the trees of New Haven. The elms, once the
city's pride, had been suffered to fall victims, in great measure, to their myriad
enemies. The congestion in the city's center was crowding out trees. New
Haven needed tree protection in its administration. It is not too much to
credit the move of the Civic Federation largely with the appointment of a city
forester and the adoption of a consistent and scientific plan for the care of trees
and the reforestration of the city, which already shows tangible results.

New Haven owes a great deal to the federation for its vigorous work in the
elimination of the mosciuito and fly pest in its borders. The marshes along
"West River and around Mill River and Morris Cove had for generations been
the source of a plentiful supply of mosquitoes, while the whole city abounded
in fly breeding places. The federation ably seconded the work of the Board
of Health, in conjunction with the nation-wide campaign against the insect
pests. ]\Ineh was done to enlighten the people by a report on "Mosquito Con-
trol" published in March, 1913. Soon after this the State of Connecticut took
lip a broad work of mosquito combat. All in all, the result has been a gradual
j-eduction of the mosquito and fly menace, along with a sure education of the
people, which will have the result of keeping it down. In this result the fed-
eration has been, so far as New Haven is concerned, a pioneer.

More specific and technical was an attempt at civic betterment suggested
in "A Survey of a New Haven District," a document issued by the federation
in April, 1913. It was by expert investigators, and included a presentation
of the social, moral and economic phases of the life of the people in a repre-
sentative section of the city. It was largely of value to the workers of the
federation, but it must have been highly suggestive to a great many New Haven
people who read it, of ways in which they could help their eity. It is illustrative
of the thoroughness of the work which some of the departments of the federation
have sought to do.

Another report on "Housing Conditions in New Haven" followed the pre-
liminary one, the latter in October, 1913. It had been prepared by Carl Arono-
vici, director of the Bureau of Social Research of New England, for the section
on Tenement House Conditions. It was technical, Irat plain. Its facts were
tabulated. The conditions found were revealed by figures, and in some cases
by illustrations. It should be said, however, that this report was not made
public until its findings had been laid before the proper authorities, thus avoid-
ing the advertising without purpose of "New Haven's shame," as the committee
expressed it. And in the year which the committee held the report before
publishing it, three of its principal recommendations were adopted : A tenement
house inspector was appointed under the Health Board; a state housing asso-
ciation was formed : amendments to the laws and ordinances were secured.

To the report, as published, were appended the Connecticut statutes con-

164 A MODERN HISTORY OF NEW HAVEN

ceruing tenement houses, as amended in 1913; a statement of New Haven's health
officer "as to the report of the first year of tenement house inspection; and a
presentation of the plans of the Improved Housing Association of New Haven,
with a sketch of the first houses which it was building under them. It appears
to have been a commendable showing of immediate results of an important

survey.

'•Living Conditions Among Negroes in the Ninth Ward, New Haven" was
a thesis written in his course by Rev. Charles W. Burton, Yale School of
Religion, 1913. It was the result of some thorough, systematic, very valuable
study, and though conducted independently of the federation, that organization
did New Haven a great service by publishing it. Citizens thoroughly conversant
with conditions among his race in New Haven have repeatedly praised this
presentation of their ease by Mr. Burton, who is now a successful pastor in
Macon, Ga.

One of the most thorough pieces of work done by any department of the
federation was ''A Study of the Problem of Girl Delinquency in New Haven,"
by the Committee on Social and Industrial Conditions, of which the Rev. Robert
C. Denison was chairman. The work, of t-ourse, was done by a trained investi-
gator under direction and employment of the committee. With facts, with
figures, with the most illuminating charts, it presented some very fundamental
truths as to a condition of which New Haven needed to know. While no alarmist
document, it did warn New Haven of certain steps it must take if it would arrest
a very serious tendency among its younger generation, and gave a basis for
some very valuable work, some of which, there is reason to believe, has since
been started. The report was printed in March. 1915. In summing up. Miss
Mabel A. Wiley, the investigator, made certain specific recommendations, most
of which concerned the improvement of court methods in dealing with the delin-
quent girl, and of the after care of the delinquent following the court stage.
The most important of these were a special court for the trying of these cases,
and a detention home for girls. These have since been adequately covei'ed by
the establishment of the Children's Building at 291 Orange Street.

For it may readily be granted that it was an outgrowth of the revelations
of this report, though of course other causes contributed, that there was pre-
sented to New Haven, in the spring of 1917, this completed Children's Building.
It was a remodeled private residence, the gift to the city of Mrs. Percy T. Walden
and her sister. Mrs. Frank D. Berrien. Hei-e, in a building admirably equipped
for tlie service, juvenile delinquents of both sexes, without being so labeled, are
detained and treated in the most effective way for what ails them. Here the
Children's Court is held, and disciplinary schools for both boys and girls are
conducted. It is one of the most effective agencies for the meeting of its juvenile
delinquency problems possessed by any city of New Haven's size anywhere. In
effect it is a home, inviting and humanly attractive, and those who pass under
its influence are permanently helped without realizing that they have been
under restraint.

AND EASTERN NEW HAVEN COT-NTY Ifio

The Civic Federation of New Haven takes justifiable pride in one of its latest
achievements, the survey of the New Haven County Jail. This was nndertaken
in 1916, also for the section on Social and Industrial Conditions. The com-
mittee actually doing the work consisted of Dr. John E. Lane, chairman;
IMrs. Charles J. Bartlett, Clarence W. Bronson, Mrs. Roliert A. Croshy and John
Phillips Street. Thei-e was an accompanying supplementary report on the same
subject by two experts, 0. F. Lewis, Ph. D., general secretary of the Prison
Association of New York, and Hastings H. Hart, LL. D., director of the Child
Helping Department, Russell Sage Foundation.

Few county jails are anything like ideal institutions; New Haven's was at
that time very much the opposite. There was no attempt to gloss over its glaring
defects. They were shown up as they were. The findings of both the local
committee and the experts condemned the jail in dispassionate but unsparing
terms as constitutionally impossible. There was not so much a suggestion of
blame for the management as there was a plain showing to the people of the
county of their duty radically to change a system and its management, and as
soon as might be to reconstruct their jail on an entirely different plan. The
outcome was the appointment, by the i-epresentatives of the county in the General
Assembly of 1917, of a commission to investigate further the jail conditions,
with a view to suggesting a material change. The presentation of the report
was too overwhelming to be disregarded. There is good prospect that in results
this will be one of the most valuable of the services of the federation.

Three documents were published by the federation in 1917, each the valuable
record of constructive work. The first was another "Health Survey of New
Haven," the second a "Voters' Bulletin" and the third a timely treatise on
the "Servant Problem."

Such are a few of the ajiparent fi'uits of the Civic Federation of New
Haven in something less than a decade of its career, with particular attention
to those phases upon which its publi.shed documents have made report. They
fail, of course, to show much of the less conspicuous but hardly less valuable of
the constant service of this effectual organization of the earnest, forward-looking
men and women of New Haven. The federation functions regularly through
sections of Sanitation, Recreation, Education, Legislation, Housing, Municipal
Research, Social and Lidustrial Conditions, Household Economics, Buildings,
Streets and Shade Trees, Finance,^ ilembership. Protection of IMinors, Lectures
and Popular Amusements, Each section is well officered and has a good working
committee, and its work each year becomes more practical and effectual. The
present officers are:

President— Charles J. Bartlett. M. D.
First Vice Pi'esident — Thomas W» Farnam.
Second Vice President — Wilson H. Lee.
Third Vice President— Patrick F. O'Meara.
Treasurer and Acting SecTctary— Donald A. Adams.

166

A MODERN HISTORY OF NEW HAVEN

Members at Large— Mrs. Percy T. Walden, Charles F. Kent, Mrs. John C.
Sehwali, Charles S. DeForest, Miss Lina M. Phipps.

Section ehaii-men. in the order of sections given above— Heni-y B. Ferris, E.
nermann Arnold. JI. D., ilrs. Percy T. Walden. Harry W. Asher, ]\[rs. Henry
Wade Rogers. Eliot Watroiis, Rev. Robert C. Denison. Mrs. Wilder Tileston,
Walter 0. Filley, Victor M. Tyler, Livingston W. Cleaveland, Frank A. Corbiii,
Frederick J. Kingsbury.

The New Haven Chamber of Commerce makes the undisputed claim to be,
with not more than one or two exceptions, the oldest organization of its kind in
the country. It was on the evening of April 7, 1794. so the record runs, that it
was organized. .Just where that meeting was held the scribe neglected to note.
The meetings for tiie first few years seem to have been occasional — being, aside
from the stated annual meeting, no doubt at the call of the president. There
were at least a few of the faithful, for wc are told that during the first twenty
years of its e.xi.stence "stated and special meetings were frequently held, and
only once — in 1801 — was there a (juorum lacking at an annual meeting." How-
ever, the native hue of resolution with which the organization was launched in
1794 must have paled a little, for the scribe relates that "from 1821, at which
time ;\lr. Gilbert Totten was elected president and Timothy Dwight secretary,
there was a revival of interest, and during the next eighteen years annual meet-
ings w-cre held quite regularly." This may not be interpreted as tremendously
productive work, even during the yeai's of the revival. There was a boom before
the end of the period, for at the ad.journed annual meeting held April 1, 1835,
twenty-five candidates were elected to membership. Among the numlier are men-
tioned Thomas R. Trowbridge, Harry Prescott and Edwin ilarble. At the next
annual meeting Harry Prescott was elected secretary, succeeding Leonard A. Dag-
gett, who had he'd the ofQce for ten years. "Sir. Daggett, we are told, began the
record of that meeting by giving the list of the newly elected members, and t^ien
added: "What was done after this I leave to my worthy sixccessor to record."
";\Ir. Prescott." writes the narrator, "proved himself to be indeed a 'worthy suc-
cessor.' For forty-eight years lie faitlifully served the cband)ei' as keeper of its
records. ' "

But the secretary's faithfulness was not shared by all the mendiers. Even
his records show that after 1839 there was a period of sad falling off in interest.
For twelve yeni-s in succession, it appears, the ainiual meetings were legally
warned, Init no (|unrum appeared to transact the business. The secretary
remained at his post through it all. And after each of these lamentable failures
he would dispassionately record, following the date in each case: "Annual meet-
ing warned, lint only the secretary being present, the meeting adjourned. H. Pres-
cott. .secretary."

This lone fidelity had its fruits in time. On Tuesday evening. ^lay 14. 1872.
he was able tn I'ccord a re il me 'ting. Jlembers and others in favor of a reoro'ani-

AND EASTERN NEW HAVEN COUNTY 167

zatioii of the chamber met at the mayor's otifiee — Henry G. Lewis being nia\()r at
that time. The mayor. Prof. Johnson T. Piatt, Edwin 8. Wheeler and the secre-
tary are mentioned as the reorganization committee. They proceeded to notify
all members and request their presence at the meeting to lie held at the sanu- jilaee
on the following Friday evening. The work of the committee is said to have
been prompt, and we have proof that it was successful in the fact that at a special
meeting held the following day at the office of Atwater, Wheeler & Company
fifty-seven of "our best citizens" were elected to membership. And still another
special meeting came the next day at the Yale National Bank, which accepted
eleven more returning to the fold.

Some serious happenings had taken place in the lapse of annual meetings,
as the following preamble and resolution, adopted at the adjourned meet-
ing, held on Friday evening. May 7, attests :

"Whereas, vacancies having occurred since the last annual election, by the
death of the president, vice president and treasurer, and it being necessary
and important that said offices should be filled, therefore,

"Resolved, that this meeting do now proceed to the choice of a president, to
fill the vacancy caused by the death of Ezra Hotchkiss, Esq., of a vice president,
to fill the vacancy caused by the death of Enos A. Prescott, Esq., and of a
treasurer, to fill the vacancy caused by the death of Henry Hotchkiss, Esq."

The meeting then proceeded to elect as president, Thomas R. Trowbridge;
as first vice president, James E. English ; as second vice president, Johnson T.
Piatt ; as recording secretary, Harry Prescott : as corresponding secretary, Edwin
S. Wheeler; as treasurer. Wilbur F. Day.

"At this meeting, besides the newcomers" — this nnist be from the faithful
Secretary Prescott "s reliable record — "there were some who, like Mr. Trow-
bridge and Mr. Prescott, had been members of the chamber 'in the old days
before the war.' " But a later historian, probably John Currier Gallagher,
who was secretary for eighteen years previous to March 27, 1909, and who
collected the scattering records of those earlier years, added: "Of this num-
ber but one is now living. Mr. Edwin Marble is the only one of the 450 members
of the chamber who can date his membership previous to the reorganization in
1872." This was written about 1909.

On the day following that reorganization in 1872, which day was May 15,
the chamber, at a special meeting, accepted a resolution incorporating "The
Chamber of Commerce of New Haven." This was promptly passed by the
General Assembly and approved by the governor — he was Marshall Jewell of
Hartford— on June 11. At the meeting of May 15 a revision of the old "bye-
laws" was adopted and a committee was appointed to procure the corporate seal
now in use.

The modei'n life of the Chamber of Commerce substantially dates from that
time. The organization then came into some conception of what such a body
of men can do for a city like New Haven. There was much to the credit of
the chamber in the vears from 1872 to 1909, though the record of some of

168

A MODERN HISTORY OF NEW HAVEN

it was not fully kept. Mr. Gallagher resi-ued some of the salieut features of
the chamber's work in that period. Of it he says modestly :

"The chamber has contributed its share of work in the establishment of
the United States AVeather Signal Station here; in the freeing and rebuilding
of Tomlinson's bridge; in the improvement of the harbor; in the relief of the
yellow fever sufferers in the South; in devising the plan for permanent street
pavements ; in the annexation of East Haven ; in the consolidation of our munici-
pal governments; in the establishment of our city park system, and in the
organization of the Naval Militia."

Of these years much more might be written. They were years of earnest
work; they were productive years. The chamber was led by good men. Such
representative citizens of New Haven as Wilson H. Lee, Hon. Rollin S. Wood-
ruff and Gen. Edward E. Bradley— to mention a few out of many— were its
presidents. But the real awakening had not come to New Haven, and the
chamber, though it helped toward it, did not serve as a rude disturber of New
Haven's conservatism. The spirit which prevailed is well illustrated in the last
decade of the period. New Haven was doing pretty well, was progressing and
prospering, they said ; and they spoke the truth. There was nobody to answer
in any aggressive way the question, why start anything?

But there were those, especially in the opening yeai'S of the century, who
fretted at the chamber's lack of aggressiveness. It might, they insisted, serve
as a mighty welder and wielder of the united influence of the men of New
Haven. It might be the agency through which they could do great things.
Subsequent events have shown that they were right.

Perhaps it was not with the clear thought of a new era in mind that the
chamber, on March 28, 1909, elected Colonel Isaac M. Ullman president. He wa.s
known as a leader in New Haven politics. He had demonstrated his ability to
marshal men who would be marshaled, within his own party lines. But some
questioned, though they kept their questionings largely to themselves, whether
he was qualified to unite such a force of positive men, worth while, as New
Haven ought to furnish to make its Chamber of Commerce a constructive force
for the highest good of the city.

But looking back now to that election of officers in March, 1909, New Haven
has to accord to it the standing of another organization of the chamber. It
marked a new era in its work, and a new era for New Haven. Along with
Colonel Ullman were elected Hon. Eli Whitney as first vice president; George
H. Scranton, second vice president ; Charles E. Julin, secretary ; Charles W.
Scrantoii, treasurer; John Currier Gallagher, George P. Burgess, James Hill-
house, Charles S. DeForest, W. Perry Curtiss, directors. The first named,
Mr. Gallagher, had been the secretary for eighteen years previous, and was
one of the most popular and respected citizens of New Haven. In all, it was
a strong body of citizens, well qualified to undertake the new task to which
they were called. The appointment of Mr. Julin was the beginning of the
employment of a paid secretary to give practically all his time to the work of

AND EASTERN NEW HAVEN COUNTY ]6!)

the (.-hamber. He has been its secTetary ever since, and though sometimes the
credit for achievement is given by tlie nudiseerning to others in more conspicuous
office, those who know accord liiiii much of the praise.

It was a distinctly go-forward plan which Colonel Ullnian at once set in
motion. The first task, naturally, was to get the men. The chamber then had
a membership of a little over 500. An aggressive campaign, inaugurated at
once, raised it in two years to more than 1,200. In 1917 it had grown to upwards
of 1,400, and was still rising. Long before this the chamber had affiliated with
itself, and counted in its membership, the Business Men's Association and the
Publicity Club. It had the men, and the strength of the union was such as
to make sure that others would come as fast as might be. It has for almost
a decade been the proper thing- to belong to the Chamber of Commerce.

The membership held partly Itecause it was set at work. There were things
to be done, and the leaders were wise enough to know that an organization,
like a man, grows by exercise. The aim of most chambers of commerce, merely
to make the city bigger, was overlooked. The big task the New Haven chamber
made its own was to make New Haven a better city in the truest ways. Per-
haps the scope of the work undertaken may fairly be indicated by a list of
the committees through which, a few years later, the chamber was operating:
Ways and Means, Manufacturers, New Enterprise, State and Local Legislation,
Public Schools and Education, Municipal Affairs, Railroads and Transporta-
tion, Town and City Improvements, Harbor, Trade School, National Legislation,
Membership, Real Estate, Civic, Sanitation and Public Health, Banquet,
Bi-Weekly Luncheon, Public Recreation, International Arbitration, Co-operation
with Scientific School, Fire Prevention and Agricultural Extension. It mu.st
seem that almost everything possible to the ambition of a chamber of commerce
would come naturally within the province of one or more of this list of com-
mittees. The policy of keeping the same chairman for each committee from
year to year has been followed, so that the most active workers of the chamber
have in a sense become experts in their lines of endeavor.

The period since then has been a period of accomplishment. Perhaps New
Haven was readier to respond than at any previous time, but no credit may be
subtracted from unitecl, consistent, hard and earnest work. It seems like boast-
ing to mention even a few of the things which the Chamber of Commerce has
achieved within less than a decade past, but it is a mere relation of facts.

One of the most significant actions, itself a matter of preparation and effi-
ciency, has been the effort to unite some of New Haven's scattered organizations
under one head. The men of New Haven have at times been painfully organized.
At least two or three organizations would be seeking to do the same thing at
the same time. It was the work of the new Chamber of Commerce to make a
beginning in simplifying New Haven organizations, at least in its own depart-
ment. The New Haven Business Men's Association was a body of the familiar
type for the serving of some interests peculiar to the merchants and tradesmen
of New Haven as distinct from the manufacturers. The governors of the cham-

170 A MODERN HISTORY OF NEW HAVEN

licr perceived, liowever, that they had much iu eommou, aud diplomatically
brought about a coalition. In the same maimer an alliance was formed with
the Publicity Club, an association of the younger luisiness and professional and
advertising men with the avowed mission of "boosting New Haven." The
three societies, though pursuing their separate activities and doing a distinct
work, now form together the New Haven Chamber of Commerce, and weld together
the strength of tlie men as is done in very few cities of the size of New Haven.

Some of the results which this united force has achieved in the city within
the past six or seven years have been initiated by one branch, some by another,
some by all three working together. The end of getting things done has been
set above pride or individual credit. And the list is an imposing one. The
merest mention must suffice.

The chamber unified and made dynamic New Haven's demand for a new
federal Iniilding and postoffice. The results of that demand appear, albeit slowly.
The chamber promoted the establislunent of the trade school, and as a result
of a wisely directed effort, the city has a trade school admirably adapted to its
needs, and withal one of the best schools of the sort in the country. The
chamber was the force which the projectors of the New Haven Manufacturers'
Exhibit, to be more particularly mentioned later, were able to use for the working
out of their idea.

"When those interested in helping the factoiy workers of the city to organize
for their protection against tuberculosis, by means of an employees' anti-tuber-
culosis association, sought to effect their purpose, the chamber was the means
which they found ready. It might have been possible for New Haven to get
its long-needed isolation hospital some day without the Chamber of Commerce,
but that organization was able to help in changing the long struggle to a realiza-
tion of the institution. The chamber has aided in anti-ice famine work, collected
funds for tlie sufferers from the Salem fire, has repeatedly led "in organizing Red
Cross campaigns, and in relief funds for the Belgian and other causes.

The chamber helped in securing home rule legislation for New Haven. It
helped achieve a modern fire-alarm system. It took up, as the modern suc-
cessor of James Hillhouse the elder, the work of reforesting New Haven. It
promoted the teachers' pension legislation. It lias worked for better pavements,
for the use of schoolhouse auditoriums as neighliorhood centers and for public
and neighborhood meetings. It has secured the placement of more and better
buoys in the harbor.

It has promoted the strengthening and improvement of the commercial course
at the New Haven High School. It started the New Haven County Farm Bureau
Association, whose benefits in more efficient farms and better farm life are
already of marked evidence and high promise. It inaugurated the "Buy in
New Haven" movement.

These are some of the achievements of the period of the chamber's awakening.
As an examiile of tlie variety and extent of the work it is doing now, it may

AND EASTERN NEW HAVEN COUNTY 171

profit to mention some of its activities in 1916 and 1917, as reported 1)y its
secretary :

Secured favorable action by tlie Board of Aldermen to extend the nuniicipal
dock, equip it with loading and unloading hoists, lay steam and electric railroad
connections and deejien vessel berths.

Worked for the new railroad passenger station of the New York, New Haven
& Hartford Railroad, and promoted the underwriting of the bond issue by
the company to pay for it.

Worked to secure a trolley shelter for transfer of passengers between rail-
road and trolley lines at the new station.

Aided the state in the military census enumeration, and aided the Federal
Government in securing information on industrial interests as a part of the
preparedness work.

Aided in home guard recruiting.

Organized the Junior Fire Prevention League in the schools; gave prizes
for encouragement of study by pupils in schools along that line; secured enact-
ment of law to prohibit the building of dangerous fire hazards in frame tenement
structures.

Assisted in plans to relieve freight congestion in the interests of both the
railroad and steamboat companies on one hand and the New Haven public on
the other.

Represented the city's bu.siness interests before the Intei-state Commerce
Commission with regard to Long Island Sound steamboat matters.

Brought to New Haven exhibits of wares that could be made or are made
in New Haven from foreign markets, to enable manufacturers to study possible
extension of their own business.

Aided the navy department to secure accurate detailed information about
New Haven's industries both for peace orders and for possible preparedness
program.

Through its committee on public health has been studying the vexatious
sewage disposal problem and urging remedial action by the Board of Aldermen.
The same committee secured the order for a public convenience station. It is
also at work on a study of preventive measures in regard to the fly nuisance.

Brought to the city the remai-kable City Planning Exhibit of the American
City Bureau.

Has stimulated interest in honest and efficient advertising through the
Publicity Club department.

Has assisted many worthy organizations working for the public welfare by
permitting the gratuitous use of the chamber's hall and offices.

All this, and many other features of the service of the chamber, were made
possible through its excellent equipment. In 1912, the city's newest and almost
its tallest building, constructed by C. W. Murdock, was named the Chamber of
Commerce Building. By arrangement with the officers of the chamber, its con-

172 A MODEEN HISTOKY OF NEW HAVEN

struetion iueluded au ample and well appointed hall, with convenient offices
for the chamber, and there its work and service has since been done.

Ill

So are two sides of New Haven's recent development — the civic and the
material— represented hy two of its prominent societies. There are many
other influences, less conspicuous, less known, at work. Some of them have had
their day and ceased to be. No sketch of the progress of New Haven in this
period would be complete without mention of the New Haven Confederation of
Men's Church Clubs. The men's church organization — league or men's club
or brotherhood^had come to be a conspicuous feature of New Haven church life
soon after 1900. By 1909 at least half of the churches of New Haven had them,
and others were constantly being added. One of the most successful of these
was the Men's Club of the Church of the Redeemer, of which Lucius W. Hall
was for many years the earnest and successful president. Mr. Hall, blessed with
a keen sense of fraternity and brotherhood, had a vision of a union of these
organizations. He began with the clubs in the churches of his own denomina-
tion, the Congregational. By 1910 he had twelve or fourteen of these, in New
Haven and vicinity, united in a federation. Soon after that he reached out
to other denominations. His persistent effort resulted, some two years later,
in the formal organization of the Confederation of Men's Church Clubs, repre-
senting about forty organizations in churches of seven denominations, with a
united membership of not far from two thousand men. Eventually the alliance
was extended to more or less closely include the men's organizations of the
Roman Catholic aud Jewish churches, and it seemed possible that the church-
men of New Haven might be welded into a mighty force of union for work of
common interest.

There was, in the opinion of many, a distinct field for union of the sort.
Churchmen of New Haven regarded it with lively interest and great hope.
Burton Mansfield, who before this had won the loyal following of the church-
men of New Haven by his leadership in the Laymen's Missionary and the ]Men
and Religion Forward movements, was elected the first president, and served
for two years. He was appropriately succeeded by Lucius W. Hall, to whose
earnest work, more than anything else, the organization owed its existence.
Under Mr. Mansfield and Mr. Hall some excellent movements for the betterment
of New Haven were started, and had the confederation been continued in the
spirit of its organization, its accomplishment might have been notable. But
a new body of officers, elected to succeed Mr. Hall aud his more intimate asso-
ciates, in tlieir wisdom decided that the confederation had not demonstrated its
claim to a separate existence, and merged it — not to emerge, it seems — in the
Civic Federation.

Tho.se conversant with the development of men's fraternities in the New
Haven churches in this decade will testify that the confederation had a more

AND EASTERN NEW HAVEN COUNTY 173

important aud lasting etfeet ou this feature of church progress than readily
appears. It promoted the spirit of fellowship, it immensely encouraged the
formation of new clubs aud the regeneration of old ones, and it started some
reforms which it has beeu comparatively easy for others to bring to profitable
fruitage.

One other New Haven organization of noble record — also of blessed memory — •
should be mentioned in this connection. The Economic Club of New Haven was
a society of excellent intention, of wise guidance, of great service to the com-
munity. Its plan was the familiar one, in its time, of having five or six dinners
in the season, each followed by a discussion, from men of national prominence
in many eases, of some important economic subject of the time. But the Eco-
nomic Club lived in the days when New Haven's mind was diverted in many
directions, not all of them highly impoi'tant. It suffered from lack of the
appreciation which was its due, hence from lack of adequate support. Those
who had carried its chief burden were fain, early in 1916, to merge its identity
with the Civic Federation.

CHAPTER XIX
MANUFACTURING IN NEW HAVEN

SOME RESI'ECTS IN WHICH NEW HAVEN WAS A PIONEER DEVELOPMENT AND

DESCRIPTION OF CITY 's INDUSTRIES

New Haven is the greatest mamifaeturing city of a great manufacturing
state. Changing conditions challenge this statement, but the facts may be pre-
sented witli conlidcnee in their showing that, however the comparison may be
in number of factories, employees, amount of capital invested or aggregate of
product. New Haven has a standard of excellence, an extent of reputation, a
variety and importance of manufactui-cs, which combine to make it Connecticut's
greatest manufacturing city.

These conditions find their causes back in the far beginnings, indeed. Ten
years after the first settlement, we are told, men versed in every branch of the
trades then known might be found in New Haven. Those known were few in
comparison with the list today, and unfortunately no consistent record was kept,
but it does not appear that New Haven had to import any workmen for any
purpose. However, there was not at first much of a demand for manufacturing
plants. The comnuinity was rather pastoral. But nine years after the first
settlement there was a plant for making shoes, a i)lant of a size which might prop-
erly distinguish it from the "cobbler shops'" of that and a later day. which
made only to order. Timlier was dressed and lumber was manufactured, and
beaver skins were prepared for export, soon enough after that to be counted
among the early manufactures of New Haven.

But all these and the other points of manufacturing interest which might
have been found in the first century of New Haven's existence were of local
note only. Manufacturing plants of size are the surest producers of rapid
growth in a city, and New Haven's slow growth for the first century and a half
of its existence seems to prove that its manufacturing development dated later
than that. For that matter, that was true of most of the communities of the
New World in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Before the invention
of steam, only the towns which had water power facilities grew materially in
mamifaeturing, and New Haven had very liniited opportunities in water power.
Its scapr)rt. position made its destiny, and held it in prominence until the era

174

AND EASTERN NEW HAVEN COUNTY 175

of modern manufacturing came. In that era, as we shall see — it began imme-
diately after the close of the Revolutionary War — ^New Haven at once took a
place of national prominence in American manufacturing.

The familiar claim to "the greatest plant of its kind in the world," or in
the country, is seldom resorted to in New Haven. Doubtless it has many manu-
facturing institutions which might make it, and some w^hich do. But many
New Haven factories can show (jualities so much more commending them to
general confidence that there is no need of it. New Haven demonstrates in many
ways that greatness does not consist alone, or chiefly, in size. There are five
or six of the cardinal lines of American manufacturing which either started
in New Haven or had close connections with tliis city in their early days. It
has repeatedly been said that "the introduction of the Whitney cotton gin
laid the foundation for the cotton industry." That Eli Whitney, who gave
it the name, was, as nearly everybody knows, early identified with New Haven,
and there, as early as 1793, established the first factory for the making of liis
machine.

Nationally, that was the beginning of New Haven manufacturing. This
pioneering was followed not many years later by other contributions almost as
notable to American manufacturing progress. The first rubber ever imported
to this country was brought to Boston in 1800. It might not have done any-
body much good had not Charles Goodyear, wizard of rubber development, been
born in New Haven that .same year. It was not until forty-four years later that
his genius flowered into the pi-actical manufacture of real rubber boots and
shoes, but 1844, when Leverette Candee started that business in New Haven,
was early in the days of New Haven or any other manufacturing. The firm of
L. Candee & Company has kept New Haven on the rubber manufacturing map
ever since.

But considerably before 1840 New Haven was mentioned as one of the
centers of the chaise-making industry in America. James Brewster, one of
the founders of a family which has served and honored Connecticut in many
other ways, started the carriage industry in New Haven in 1827. Other pio-
neers in this manufacture came shortly after him, and despite the supposed
decline in the use of the horse in the large centers of the east. New Haven
has today thirty concerns rated as carriage makers.

¥Ai Whitney did not confine his contribution to early New Haven manufac-
,turing to the making of cotton gins, as we know. By 1798 he had gone into
firearms out near the lake and on the road which still bears his name. And
from that day to this, in every land where they burn gunpowder, the making
of firearms has been identified with New Haven. The Winchester Repeating
Arms Company was the lineal successor of the Whitney Arms Company, though
organized sixty years after it, and the industry has grown by the attraction to
this manufacturing center of indejiiendent companies until now, in this time of
demand for war materials, there are liere four or five munitions concerns of note.

The clock industry, as we know it in New Haven today, is not as old as

176 A MODERN HISTORY OF NEW HAVEN

some persons think, but New Haven was in it in its beginnings, and had an
important part. The New Haven Clock Company was planted here in 1817, and
forty years later this concern absorbed the Jerome Clock Company, so that Hiram
Camp and Chaunccy Jerome, two famous pioneer American clock makers, were
jointly associated with New Haven.

Still another industry that had one of its oldest roots in New Haven was
the making of matches. Hatches were not made in the United States until
1836, and it was several years later before machinery for their manufacture
was sufficiently developed to make their production amount to much as an indus-
try. E. B. Beecher of Westville was among the developers of the successful
modern process of making matches, and had a factory in Westville for some
years prior to the organization there of the Diamond Match Company in 1884.
The importance which this concern assumed among the producers of matches in
the country may be indicated by the fact that, when the match trust was organ-
ized some fifteen years afterwards, it took the name of the Diamond Match Com-
pany, under which title it operates today. Some of the important processes and
mechanical advances which make possible the great magnitude of the match
industry in these days are directly traceable to the progress achieved in New
Haven. In addition to Mr. Beecher, J. P. Wright of New Haven is mentioned
among the early inventors and developers of the match.

New Haven is not prominently mentioned in the development of American
.shipbuilding, but we know that it had a part in its establishment in New Eng-
land as early as 1640. It appears that New Haven's product, then and in the
two and one-half centuries after that for which it participated in the building
of vessels, was mostly confined to coasting schooners, but some very notable
vessels of this type were launched from New Haven yards before the industry
waned here as all along the Connecticut shore.

The manufacture of plumbers' and steamfitters' supplies did not noticeably
develop in this country until near the middle of the last century, and not in
New Haven until somewhat after that. Yet when it attained prominence, all
at once New Haven was found to occupy a place in it very important in pro-
portion to its size. So that by 1890 there were thirty-five factories in New
Haven making plumbers' and gasfitters' supplies, hardware or machinery con-
nected therewith. These had a capital of $196,450 then, and an annual output
worth nearly half a million dollars. Both capital and annual product, of course,
have materially increased since that time. The number of establishments of»
the sort has now increased to 117, and there are in New Haven eleven factories
devoted exclusively to the making of plumbers' supplies.

The making of crackers, or "biscuit," an industry which became prominent
in the east soon after the beginning of the nineteenth century, was early repre-
sented in New Haven. In the days before the trust, the New Haven Baking
Company was always included in a list of the leading biscuit baking concerns
of New England. In the late 'nineties this was made a substantial part of the

AND EASTERN NEW HAVEN COUNTY 177

National Biscuit Company, and sinue then not more than two or tliree baking
companies witli any claim to national standing have existed in New Haven.

New Haven could show many other claims to belong among the pioneers of
American manufacturing. It was from the tir.st the abode of Connecticut
Yankees, and the Connecticut Yankee is versatile. Versatility has been a promi-
nent characteristic of New Haven manufacturing. There is hardly a branch of
the tree of American industry that has not at some time had a less or greater
representation in Now Haven. It can, in fact, hardly be said to specialize in any-
thing, so wide is its range of arts and crafts and trades.

These lines gave New Haven national and international note as a manufac-
facturing city. But they did not give it a di.stinctiou which made it as widely
known for its industry as it was for its education. The old "descriptive geog-
raphies'' always put first the fact that New Haven was the home of Yale
University, and second that it was the "City of Elms"; then, apparently as
an incidental, that it had "extensive manufactures of firearms, clocks and
carriages." So it was up to the time of the Civil War, whose effect, naturally,
was seriously to cripple most of New Haven's industries with the exception of
the making of fire arms.

Then, after the war, came a new lease of life to New Haven manufacturing,
and at the same time a broadening of its lines of production. Immediately
many new industries began to come to the city, most of which have remained
and flourished ever since.

But still a greater awakening came with the crossing of the boundary line into
the twentieth century, or about that date. The transportation and seaport
advantages of the city had their efifect in multiplying industries, and New
Haven had a fair name as a desirable place of residence. Moreover, its popu-
lation was growing rapidly from immigration. Labor was abundant and easily
obtained. The rapidity of factory growth was not fully realized at the time,
but by the end of the first decade of 1900 we find a city with at least 500 manu-
facturing establishments, employing altogether over 24,000 persons, several of
them having from 2,000 to ^^flOO workers each. Their products were at that
time rated at more than $50,000,000 a year. The number of plants has since then
grown to nearly 800, and their invested capital approaches $18,000,000. The
total number of workers at the present time is difficult to get. because of immense
recent additions, and the secrecy which attends the manufacture of firearms
and munitions. But it is frequently estimated, and generally without challenge,
that the number employed in the leading one of these firearms factories alone
is as great as the 24,000 accorded to all the New Haven factories in 1908. There
are three principal concerns for the manufacture of munitions, the Winchester
Repeating Arms Company, the IMarlin-Rockwell Arms Coi-poration and the
]\raxim Company.

Vol. I— 1 2

178 A MODERN HISTORY OF NEW HAVEN

The other lines of manufacture in New Haven have, in the main, pursued
the even tenor of their way, which is steady, consistent growth. Occasionally
a new line comes into the company, and it generally stays. The New Haven
manufacturing area, which used to be mostly along the railroad and harbor
front, has materially extended, but is still mainly confined to the eastern and
northern portions of the city. Hamdeu has been invaded in several directions.
Some of the large factories have run over into Whitneyville, into Centerville
and notably into Hamden Plains, which because of the "Canal Road," as it
used to be called, has convenient shipping facilities. The residence and manu-
facturing parts of the city are still pretty well separated, and those who so
desire may, but for the scream of the early morning whistles, fancy themselves
living in a non-manufacturing paradise.

The student of New Haven manufacturing invariably reverts to the l)egin-
nings of it. when Eli Whitney utilized the power of the stream that flows from
the foot of Mount Carmel for the making of his cotton gin. He was six or
seven miles down on that river, close to what are now the city limits of New
Haven. Right under the brow of East Rock he built his dam and his modest
factory, and right there has been a factory, used for one purpose or another,
ever since. The story of the cotton gin, perhaps the most distinguislied romance
of earl.y American manufacture, has been often told. Connecticut cannot claim
the origin of the first Eli Whitney, but from the time that he built that first
factory under East Rock he and his descendants have lived in New Haven, and
been very much a part of its history.

Whitney was a graduate of Yale in the class of 1792. How he aftei'ward went
to the South expecting to teach, how he found the place filled and was obliged
to accept the hospitality of his friend, Mrs. Greene, how there he learned of the
unsolved problem of the cotton-growing South, and how his Yankee ingenuity
came to the rescue and solved it with the cotton-gin — these are details in a pretty
■well known tale. It might have been expected that the manufacture of the gin
would at once begin his fortune, but such was not tiie case. It was said that
he received in all about $90,000, which was indeed a fortune for that day. But
out of that sum he had to equip his factory and pay the cost of tedious and
expensive litigation to establish his rights to the patent on the cotton gin. For-
tunes have been made on the manufacture of cotton gins after the Whitney
model, but he did not make them.

But he did not therefore die poor, after the manner of many of his lirethren
of inventive fame. The Ihiited States did not disarm after the Revolutionary
War; it had rather, in a .sense, to begin to arm. There was prospect of good
money in making firearms for the government, and Whitney perceived it. He
had begun making cotton gins in 1793, and in 1798 he took a contract to furnish
10,000 muskets for the United States Government. He did not have the monop-
oly of the country for that manufacture, but he seems to have had a method of
manufacture which was as radical as had been his cotton-gin invention. The
other gun makers ridiculed him. it is said, because he went so far in substituting

AND EASTERN NEW HAVEN COUNTY 179

machines for haiul labor. He was lacking in capital, too, but he seems to have
been able to secure that without great difficulty. Success came without long
waiting, and by 1812, as he puts it himself, he had developed the "most respect-
able private establishment in the United States for carrying on the maniifacture
of arms."

It is interesting to know that this factory was in an important sense the
pattern if not the parent of the most important firearms concerns in this part
of the country. The Winchester Repeating Arms Company was its direct descend-
ant, and began its career in the old factory at Lake Whitney. From it have
directly or indirectly sprung the Arsenal at Springfield, the Colt Armory and
Pratt & Whitney at Hartford, and the now defunct Arsenal at Harper's Ferry.

It is less generally known that Eli Whitney made another important thing
at the old Lake Whitney factory than the cotton-gin and the gun, and incident-
ally added to New Haven's distinction as a pioneer manufacturing center. It
was the very first milling machine made in this country. That was in 1818. The
machine itself was a crude one, and .iudged by today's standards, of little use.
There is good reason to suppose, however, that it served as an important model,
and had no little influence on the manufacturing standards of its time. This
quaint relic was almost lost at one time, but fortunately was rescued by the
present Eli Whitney, and by him presented to Yale University, where it is now
preserved with honor in the Mason IMechanical Engineering Laboratory.

There must be a break, at least in continuity of control, between the industry
which Eli Whitney founded and the actual beginnings of the institution which
bears the name of Winchester. It is not the policy of the great arms manufactory
to talk much about its business, or even about its crude and struggling begin-
nings. Oliver F. Winchester, a strong citizen of New Haven and of Connecticut,
who in 1866 was lieutenant governor, had started a general firearms industry
in the old AYhitney factory about 1860. Strange as it may seem to us from the
viewpoint of the present prosperity of every concern that can make firearms,
Mr. Winchester seems to have had a struggle all through the war time. But
he kept going, and in 1866 he succeeded in organizing a company for the manu-
facture of a firearm that was a great improvement over the old Henry rifle.
It was not intended as an army rifle. Mr. Winchester thought he saw in the
still unconquered AYest a foeman, if such it might be called, worthy of the best
he could make in shooting irons, and the sequel has commended his judgment.

This rifle, named the "Winchester" at the start, has become so well known,
not only in our West, but on every frontier and in every sporting country in
the woi-ld, that "Winchester" has almost passed from a proper to a commou
noun, and appi-oaches the strange distinction of losing its capital letter. In
half a century the concern whose capital Oliver F. Winchester floated with such
difficulty in 1866. its management passed to the second generation of his de-
scendants, its stock quoted at but not for sale at *1,000 a share just before
the great war. and rising to $2,500 or more a little later, had come to be a small
city in itself. In 1913 it employed nearly 6,000 persons; its factories covered

180 A MODERN HISTORY OF NEW HAVEN

over Hftv-eight acres of groimd, with twenty-eight acres of floor space devoted
to inachinerv and tools. The effect of the war was to more than double this
acreage and" to increase the number of buildings over fifty per cent. This is
in addition to 396 acres beyond the city limits which the company controls for
its powder storage and mixing houses and laboratories. Twenty-five miles to the
ea.st, on a secluded -'island" or point beyond the salt marshes on the western
side (if tlic mouth of the Hammonassett River, the company has a shooting range
and proving grounds, where the crack of the rifle in the hands of experts who
are testing the Winchester guns and ammunition sounds almost constantly the

year around.

Only approximate figures can be given of the present number of workers at
the Wincliestcr plant. At times daring the war the factory has been worked
in three eight-hour shifts a day. and it is reported that at such times as many
as 8.000 persons have been employed in each shift. What will be the status of
the great concern after the war is problematical, but those familiar with the
organization and efficiency of this world-known manufacturing institution have
little fear as to the future.

It is a somewhat common impression that the wooden clock movement, fairly
familiar to those acquainted with the "inwards" of antique timepieces, is the
oldest type of clock. It is merely the oldest in Connecticut, and Connecticut
clocks are the oldest native to this country. The metal movement was known
before that in other clock making countries, but material for its manufacture
was out of the reach of the early clockmakers of Connecticut, so they ingeniously
made shift with wood as a substitute, using metal only for pinions and bushings.
Evid(>nee is still with us. in clocks running well on in their second century, that
they made a good article. It is now almost a century and a half since Elihu
Terry whittled out the First Connecticut clocks in East Windsor. He moved
to Plymouth later, and for all his handicap of lack of labor saving machinery,
was making money rapidly for those times when Chauneey Jerome appeared
at Bristol as his competitor. Bristol and its region has been one of the homes
of Connecticut clock making ever since, though the Jerome interests were trans-
ferred to New Haven well back in the last century.

It was early in the nineteenth century that Hiram Camp, founder of the
New Haven Clock Company, was associated with the Jerome industry in Bristol.
It is .iust about a century since he came to New Haven and founded, in con-
junction with .lerome. the industry which placed New Haven on the clock map
and has kept it there ever since. For the first forty years of that time it was
independent of the Jerome company, which ran a factory in New Haven, first
foi- the makino- of clocks and later for the making of cases for movements which
were made in Bristol. Soon after 1850, this concern got into financial difficulties,
and about 1857 was absorbed by the New Haven Clock Company.

Since some time before that New Haven clocks have been standard in the
world of timepieces. Almost every type except the tower clock has been made
here, and in recent years this concern has developed the clock-watch, or popular

AND EASTERN NEW HAVEN COUNTY 181

pocket timepiece, to a couspicuous degree of success. These are made in a variety
of grades and sizes, many of which compare most favorably with watches of
the sort much more widely advertised. It is not so generally known that the
American Pedometer Company, a concern which makes the best known pedometer
on the American market, is a branch of the New Haven Clock Company, and that
all of its output is made at that factory which occupies a large part of two sides
of Hamilton Street in New Haven. The clock company is capitalized at
$1,000,000, and employs upwards of 2,000 hands. Its product goes to every
land of tlie world where time is regarded as anything like money, and is recog-
nized as of high standard.

The builder almost the world over has "Sargent" in his mind when he thinks
of building hardware. Perhaps no concern in New Haven makes its city's
name more widely known than Sargent & Company. It is strictly a New Haven
concern, backed from the beginning largely by New Haven capital. That be-
ginning was made in a small way in 1864, and has grown to impressive pro-
portions. Sargent & Company is an institution that stands by itself, its group
of factories a city in themselves, conveniently situated on the railroad and
harbor fi-ont. In them are employed upwards of 4,000 workers, the concern
being, normally, the second in importance among the manufactories of New
Haven. A list of the small hardware made there would fill a small hook. Some
of the more familiar lines, such as locks, latches, knobs, door checks, planes,
steel squares and other tools, are well known. Of some of these there is an
endless variety, but there is also a myriad of articles in small hardware made
by the company which even the average worker in the institution would find it
difficult to enumerate in any complete way.

The rubber industry has not waned in New Haven, though the great centers
of it have been mostly in other cities. Since in 1842 Leverette Candee estab-
lished his factory for the making of rubber boots and shoes under the Goodyear
patent, the concern which bears his name has been sticking to that line of product.
It maintains its right to the title of oldest manufactory of rubber boots and
shoes in the world, making every kind, style and size of rubber footwear, includ-
ing special styles for all the different countries of the world where rubbers are
known. Other manufactories of rubber goods, in larger variety, have come to
join it in later years, of which the more important are the Seamless Rubber
Company and the Baumann Rubber Company. There are now in New Haven
eight concerns in all making various forms of rubber goods.

The Peck Brothers & Company is another of the world-known manufacturing
concerns of New Haven, and illustrates another characteristic line of New Haven-
made goods. It is the leader of a dozen concerns making plumbers' supplies,
and has carried this line, particularly modern liathroom fittings, as near to
perfection as it is carried anywhere in the world. Some of the other well known
concerns in this branch of business are the Economy Manufacturing Company,
bath tubs; the C. S. Mcrsiek & Company, handling plumbers' fittings in general,
and the National Pipe Bending Company, house piping and coils.

182 A MODERN HISTORY OF NEW HAVEN

Hardly auy business has so ehauged from its early form as that of carriage
building. The horse may have diminished in numbers in New Haven, but still
New Haven makes carriages for the country. The thirty carriage makers of
the city are not all of them building mostly coaches for fours, and the stately
landaulet gives place to more sprightly modern designs. But still there are
coaches in use, and some of the linest of them are made and trimmed here.
There are still some fine old New Haven names in the list of rotary firms. The
New Haven Carriage Company is the successor of the old Brewster institution.
Henry Hooker & Company and the M. Armstrong Company are names that recall
the finest traditions of the carriage trade. Dann Brothers & Company continue
a growing business in supplies and carriage parts, and the D. W. Baldwin firm
still builds as well as repairs carriages and automobile bodies, regardless of
whether horses have any connection with them. C. Cowles & Company, a firm
uow well advanced in its fourth quarter of a ceutury, makes, as it has done for
years, the finest sort of coach and carriage and automobile fittings and lamps.
A. T. Demarest & Company, A. Ochsner & Sons Company and Samuel K. Page
complete the line of distinguished leaders.

New Haven holds its lead in the corset industry, with twelve factories, some
of them making the world's best known lines. This industry does not date back
so many decades, for it is only in recent years that coi'set making has been
raised to the plane of high art, but it now employ's .several thousands of workers
in New Haven, and is one of the city's most reliable industries. In the front
ranks of the trade are such firms as Strouse, Adler & Company, I. Newman
& Sons, the Strouse Corset Company, Henry H. Todd, the Hiekok Company
and Otteuheimer & "Weil.

New Haven's line of makers of machinery is a long one, including at present
twenty-seven firms. Some of the best known of them as the Greist Manufactur-
ing Company, sewing machine attachments ; the Geometric Tool Company,
special tools; the William Schollhorn Company, pliers and nippei's; the Snow
& Petrelli Company, hardwai-e and special machinery; the Hoggson & Pettis
Manufacturing Company, dies, chucks and special tools ; the McLagon Foundry
Company, pattern makers and iron founders; the New Haven Manufacturing
Company, machine tools and special machinery ; the Rowland Machine Company,
special machine builders; the Fuller Manufacturing Company, book binders'
and printers' machinery; R. H. Brown & Company, special tools and machines;
the Eastern Screw Machine Corporation, screw machine products.

Cigar making is an important industry in New Haven, as forty-seven estab-
lishments, some of them of considerable size, indicate. Some of the lirands made
in them are called for in almost every large center of cigar consumption. Of
course, as in every city where cigars are made, there are many small concerns
which go to make up the total number. Some of the leading manufactories in
this line are Frederick D. Grave and Lewis Osterweis & Sons.

New Haven has its share of indu.stries which, though including few factories,
are peculiar to the city. The more important of these have already been men-

AND EASTERN NEW HAVEN COUNTY 183

tioucd. la addition, tliere are such concerus as the Andrew B. Hendryx Com-
pany, widely famous for bird cages and fishing reels ; the Acme Wire Company,
whose peculiar product lias made a place for it in the electi'ical world entirely
beyond proportion to the length of its record on the market; the Regal Silver
Company, New Haven 's lone representative in a business mostly monopolized by
its neighbors ; the Lionel Manufacturing Company, in the business of making toy
electric railroads; the National Folding Box and Paper Company and its half a
dozen smaller associates in the box making industry ; and not less than the others,
the Bigelow Company, whose big B stands for boilers the world over. Publishers
are not usually included in a list of manufacturers, but perhaps the Price & Lee
Company, makers of directories for over sixty towns in five states, might prop-
erly be added to the makers of New Haven's fame.

One of New Haven's newest factories perhaps deserves special mention.
Albert C. Gilbert, only a few years ago, was a young Yale student who was
helping himself through college by giving exhibitions in legerdemain in the
evenings. Then he conceived the idea of making sets of magic apparatus for
amateurs. By the time lie was graduated from the Yale Medical school he had
the manufacturing bent stronger than the medical. He had invented a struc-
tural steel toy for boys which he called the "Gilbert Erector." On leaving
college he organized the Mysto Manufacturing Company, to make his magic
sets and the Erector. He proved his advertising genius at the same time, and
his business grew in the night. It spread fast and far, and in a few years
forced him to move into one of the finest and best equipped of the modern
factories of New Haven, that on Blatchley avenue formerly occupied by the
Fuller Company. Tliere the A. C. Gilbert Company now makes, in addition
to the Erector and Mysto sets, the Polar Cub electric fans, electric toy motors,
the Gilbert chemistry oufits, Gilbert toy machine guns, toy diving submarines,
Gilbert electrical sets and the "Briktor. " The inventor has recently brought
out an ingenious set of puzzles, some of which he is including in many of the
comfort kits sent to the far away soldiers.

These are merely some of the "high spots" in New Haven manufacturing.
Its variety is almost endless. The almost eight hundred manufacturing con-
cerns in the city of New Haven make about 155 lines of goods, some of them,
of course, making several diff'erent lines. Fourteen of the lines are i-epresented
by ten or more factories each. These are : Carriage makers, 30 ; machinerv
manufacturers, 27 ; cigar manufacturers, 47 : cabinet makers, 18 ; corset manu-
facturers, 12; jewelry manufacturers, 12; confectioners, 14; engineering con-
tractors, 54; bakers, 80: marble works, 11; medicine manufacturers, 14; hard-
ware manufacturers. 25 ; hat manufacturers, 11 ; ice cream manufacturers, 11.
Of the large manufacturing corporations in New Haven, 133 have a combined
capital of over $17,000,000.

In the district covered by this history outside of New Haven, represented
mostly by Meriden, Wallingford, West Haven and Branford, there are 245 con-

184 A MODERN HISTORY OF NEW HAVEN

cerns, representing 114 lines of manufacture. Here, also, there are many eases
where one firm represents several lines. In some cases, as found in Meriden and
Wallingford especially, the history of an important American industry is in-
cluded in the mamifaeturing history of the towi. These will be treated at lenolh
under their respective towns.

CHAPTER XX
THE NEW HAVEN MANUFACTURERS' EXHIBIT

CONCEPTION AND FORMATION OP THE FIRST PERMANENT DISPLAY OF ITS SORT IN
AMERICA — REVIEW OF SOME OF THE PRINCIPAL FEATURES IT PRESENTS

How do we know that New Haven is a great manufacturing city ? What
does it make besides firearms and eloc-ks and perhaps carriages and their parts?
These are questions which miglit he asked, and if they have not always been,
one of the reasons is that the manufacturing light of New Haven has been too
much hidden within the four walls of its dingy factories, and beneath their low
roofs. The visitor from Japan knew much of what New Haven makes before he
left his land ; the dweller in New Haven has, until within the last few years,
known comparatively little. For the means of advertising the manufactures of
New Haven in the most sensible, natural, effective way was not discovered
until a few years ago.

It was in the summer of 1911 that two citizens of New Haven, each vigilant
for the welfare of his city, visited Europe. One of them, George Dudley Sey-
mour, was renewedly impressed with what he had noticed before in some of the
Old World's manufacturing centers, the development of the permanent exhibit
of local manufactured products. On the other, Charles E. Jultn, it dawned in
its fullness for the first time. They talked it over together on the way back.
They talked it over with other citizens after they returned. Why not such
an exhibit for New Haven ? There was not, so far as they were informed, such
an exhibit in America. Here was a chance for New Haven to be a pioneer, to
demonstrate that it was tlie most progressive as well as the greatest manufactur-
ing city in Connecticut. Here was a chance to show most effectively what it
seemed difficult to impress upon New Haven people and others, that New
Haven was something substantially more than the seat. of Yale University, and
that its claim to manufacturing greatness was nnich more than an empty boast.

Industrial fairs had not been unknown in New Haven. Many an organi-
zation had given a successful show, and for a few days had a surprising display
of New Haven's industries and manufactures. The people had seen and mar-
veled — and gone away and forgotten. But a permanent manufacturers' exhibit
would be quite another thing. It would stick until it had successfully caught

185

186 A MODERN HISTORY OF NEW HAVEN

the attention, not only of the people of New Haven, but of all the country

'round.

It took time to make the captains of industry in New Haven nestle up to
the idea. But the two men who had it were able missionaries. They had the
newspapers on their side. And, fortunately, they had the aid of the awakened
Chamber of Commerce. There was no need to waste time, and no time was
wasted. The plan appealed to President Isaac M. Ullman of the chamber, and
he appointed as a committee to develop it George Dudley Seymour, former
Governor Rollin S. Woodruff, Edward R. Sargent, Walter Camp, H. Stuart
Hotchkiss, P^'rank J. Schollhorn and Charles E. Julin. This committee saw to
it that the scope and advantages of the plan were fully placed before prac-
tically every manufacturer in New Haven and the New Haven district. The
response was most encouraging. It struck the practical men with the force of
a brand new idea. They promised co-operation.

Accordingly, a temporary organization was formed on September 16, 1911,
and the following were elected directors : Isaac ]\L Ullman, Edwin P. Root,
Frank J. Schollhorn, H. Stuart Hotchkiss and Harry B. Kennedy. They were
appointed immediately following a well-attended meeting of representative man-
ufacturers who pledged themselves to participate in such an exhibit, and the
directors were instructed to secure a place and get the exhibit under way as
soon as possible.

In the middle of the nineties the printing house of 0. A. Dorman erected an
ambitiously ample building on the north side of Chapel Street, east of what
is now "the cut," or subway hy which the trains of the New Haven road pro-
ceed through the city to the northward and eastward. It had not prospered
to match its large building, and a few years later the building was sold to
Minotte E. Chatfield. It is said now that he had at the time some thought that
the building would be ideal for such exhibits, though he did not, probably, think
of using it for a permanent one. He did not at once push it for such a purpose,
however, but remodeled and equipped it for a place of amusement, and named
it "the Auditorium." But it had not been a success for that use, its acoustic
drawbacks being against it. The building was open to engagements, and the
temporary directors of the exhibit a.ssociation were not slow in perceiving that
it would make an ideal place for their purpose.

This edifice, located at 671 to 677 Chapel Street, was ea.sily secured, its
owner being as enthusiastic as anybody for the project. There the exhibit was
formally opened on May 15, 1912. Meanwhile, the permanent New Haven Man-
ufacturers' Exhibit Association had been formed, with these directors: Fi-ank
S. Cornwell, Edward R. Sargent, Harry B. Kennedy. Frank J. Scliollhorn,
Winche.ster Bennett, John J. Reidy and Charles C. Hale. They elected as pres-
ident Edward R. Sargent : vice president, Frank S. Cornwell ; Treasurer, Harry
B. Kennedy ; secretary, G. Edward Osborn ; executive committee, Winchester
Bennett, chairman, Frank S. Cornwell and Harry B. Kennedy.

So far as the exhibitors were concerned, the exhibit was a success from the

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AND EASTERN NEW HAVEN COUNTY 187

start. A large number of the most important manufacturers of the city and of
some of the towns a little outside placed most attractive displays iu the rooms.
The large floor of the Auditorium was railed off into sections, and one or two
exhibits were placed in each. These displays have been developed and enlarged
as the business progi-essed, and have been an accurate index of the business and
manufacturing growth of the city. The firms represented, most of them intelli-
gent advertisers, were not slow to see the possibilities of the .show. Something
over a hundred of the best concerns iu New Haven now have displays there,
and the number tends to grow.

The New Haven and wider public, on their part, have appeared to need educa-
tion as to the value of the exhibit. Those who conceived it at the start have
tried to see to that education. Their idea, and it seems a reasonable one. was
that the citizens of New Haven would deem the exhibit one of the sights of their
city. New Haven is annually visited by thousands from all parts of the country
and beyond. Almost every member of the University has his guests each year
of his stay, some of them coming from far. Many of them come with the im-
pression that the University is about all of New Haven. It was evident that the
exhibit might excellently serve as a corrective of this impression. It was to be
an expression of the other side of New Haven which in .justice should be brought
to the attention, not only of the visitors but of the people at home.

It has worked out in that way, Init slowly. The Auditorium is an admirable
exhibit building in all but location. Somehow, ""the cut," as the channel of
the railways is called, acts as a dividing line of the current of New Haven
motion. Business and trade and civic and social interests seem to center on the
liither side of it, and it takes inducement and advertising to draw them to the
other side. The advertising has been tried. A great signboard, easily visible
from State and Chapel streets and above, calls attention to the Manufacturers'
Exhibit. Once a year, or thereabout, the association was wont to have a demon-
stration week, during wliieh there were special inducements, of souvenirs and the
like, to visit the exhibit. These things, with the fairly constant aid of at least
some of the newspapers, have served to keep the exhibit before the people of
New Haven. It was, when established, the first permanent exhibit of its kind
in America. It remains in a sense uniciue, though other manufacturing centei-s
have been quick to sec the virtue of the idea, and have followed New Haven's
example.

Nothing is more effective for teaching than the visible evidence of tlie thing
done. Here, displayed in one great aggregation, is what New Haven makes
with its machines and with its hands. Here is the concrete evidence of the
manufacturing brain of a great manufacturing city, operating through more
than a century. New Haven is a center of education ; it is also a center of that
characteristic Yankee ingenuity. "Made in New Haven" is a seal-motto as
honorable in its way as "Lux et Veritas." There could not be a more self-
respecting, unboastful way of displaying the virtues of the city than an ex-
hibit of the best of its manufactured product.

188 A MODERN HISTORY OF NEW HAVEN

The exhibit is open every week day at convenient hours, and is in constant
care of a superintendent and an able corps of assistants, who are ready to
direct visitors, answer their questions, explain all about t^e products and their
exhibitors. All that is possible is done to make the place attractive, especially
to the stranger in the city, to put New Haven's "best foot forward." There
are local and long distance telephones, forty-five directories of the principal
telephone lines, typewriters a ad a public stenographer. There is a writing
room, and a reading room in which are twenty or more of the leading daily
newspapers of the state and country, and nearly twenty of the principal trade
journals. In definite ways this is made a manufacturing headquarters of New
Haven, in which appointments may be made between local inannfacturcrs and
their associates from other cities, or where visiting representatives of the trades
may meet New Haven manufacturers and business men.

All this has been the growth of time, and is only partly grown as yet. New-
Haven has yet to learn to use the exhibit as it might. But the response of both
the New Haven and the outside public ha.s been encouraging, in the main.
Such an innovation as this was in its inception is naturally slow in its dawning.
But New Haven is proud of its ^Manufacturers' Exhibit, and to those who visit
the city from far and near it seems, of course, more wonderful than it does to
the people at home. Judged impartially, it really is a remarkable display of
manufacturing achievement.

As a fairly adequate picture of modem manufacturing New Haven is liere
displayed, it is fitting to attempt in this place a sketch of some of the leading
features of the exhibit. The Auditorium itself is a well made building of at-
tractive business architectui'e, stretching for a hundred feet along the north side
of Chapel Street only a little way below w^iere the Union Station was in the days
of a generation ago. Within, it is light, airy and well adapted to the purpose
of ample display of a great variety of products. The exhibit booths have been
separated from each other by divisions which keep them distinct without shut-
ting off the light, and yet without detracting from their united effectiveness.

One of the first things for which the visitor from outside of New Haven looks
— the thing of which he had heard if he knows nothing else of the city's manu-
factures, is the showing of the Winchester Repeating Arms Company. There
it is, its big "red W" making it seen afar. Appropriately, it is conveniently
placed where one should begin his survey of the exhibit. One who looks there
for evidence of the company's war material will not find it. Winchester's is
not, in ordinary times, a place where munitions are made. There is a large
variety of sporting rifles, shotgun.s, small arms and ammunition. There are
details showing .something of the long and distinguished history of the insti-
tution, and something of the record made and trophies won liy its products.
Considering the size of the concern, which was and is the largest employer of
labor in New Haven, it is a concise exhibit, but it tells much.

AND EASTERN NEW HAVEN COUNTY 189

One of the most impressive of the displays is near by. It is that of the old
and extensive manufactory which had made New Haven's manfaeturing name
almost as •widel.y known as its educational name — Sargent & Company. In
three large cases is shown a seemingly infinite variety of small hardware, begin-
ning with locks which are "the sign of quality,'" and going through the long
'list of builders' hardware, house fittings, tools and hardware miscellany which
the name of this firm makes "sterling." It is a revelation to most Xew Haven-
ers, even to some of the multitude who work in one department or another
of the great group of factories included under this name.

Few visitors fail to find fascination in the generally attractive display of
the New Haven Clock Compan\-. which is constantly changing as the company
adds to its lines of modern timepieces. Knowing that the town is a "clock
town," visitors from New Haven or elsewhere may hei-e learn why. There is
the whole family of Father Time's servitors, from tlie stately hall-tower of
grandfather to the tiny wrist or pin watch of my little lady, and all admirably
displayed.

Where is the son of Izaak Walton that does not know the Hendryx reel?
Or the canary lover that has not sheltered her yellow pet in a Hendryx bra.ss
cage? It is a unii|ue industry, peculiar to New Haven. Here is an excellent
exhiliit of its whole line of products. They are standard of their sort for the
world, and have done not a little to make New Haven famous. Theirs is not
a small part of the interest in the general exhibit.

There are few cities in New England where the Peck Brothers & Company
plumbers' supplies are not known to the plumbing trade, or where the Peck
trade name is not well known to householders. This firm's display is an ideally
fitted bath room. It is not an exaggeration, for its like can be found in many a
fine residence from here to Los Angeles on the west, and to Buenos Aires on
the south.

Two firms with displays sonunvhat technical, but very int<^'resting on ex-
aminations are the William SchoUhorn Company and the H. B. Ives Company.
The former's specialty is pliers, nipi)ers and punches which bear the Bernard
patent mark, and the latter shows an attractive line of builders' hardware,
high grade window and door specialties.

The advertising artist says that "the sun never sets on 'Jlilford' hack saw
blades; north, east, south, west they are known in every civilized country in
the world." Here they are displayed, the product of the Henry G. Thompson
& Sons Company, along with an interesting line of metal sawing machines, tool
holders and other hardware.

To say that the Barnes Tool Company just makes pipe cutters does not de-
scribe much, but to see their display here of clippers, of everything from a
quarter-inch to a twelvo-inch pipe is to be impressed. A few specialties are
thrown in for setting.

A good many residents of Xew Haven, asked at random where emery comes
from, would never think of connecting its manufacture with their city. They

:90 A MODERN HISTORY OF NEW HAVEN

need to see the neatly arranged glass jars eontaining the Oriental Emery Com-
pany's finished produet of Turkish and Naxos emery, with samples of the crude
material. Two of the eoncerns that have made Westville famous since the
Diamond :Match Company left it are the Geometric Tool Company and the
Greist JIanufacturing Company. The former makes threading tools and die
heads and taps of the finest type, and the latter sewing machine attachments.
Each has a most illuminating display of its products, and the Greist Company
goes further with a large showing of fascinating mni'hine needlework made with
the things it makes.

One of the firms tiiat has had a large place in New Haven manufacturing
history, as we have seen, is C. Cowles & Company. It would be difficult for
one of its townsmen, even knowing its history, to appreciate the fineness of its
products but for such a display as it has at the exhibit. It has one of the most
attractive booths on the floor, showing the refinement of carriage and automobile
lighting, together with a variety of small fittings for vehicles of luxury.

New Haven products are not, as one might suppose, confined to hardware;
it makes good things to eat as well. Here is the most appetizing di.splay of the
John T. Doyle Company — catsups, beans and pork, beef stew, soups, extracts
and a constantly increasing line of conserved products of Connecticut farms
and gardens.

New Haven, we all knew, was a rubber town. Specifications are here in
the exhibit of the L. Candee & Company. Its giant rubber boot, such as Og of
Bashan might have worn had he been as big as his reputation — or it might have
been one of those seven-league boots — looms up with great advertising effect.
But there is a surprising variety of actually wearalile things, in all sizes of the
human foot and in all colors of the fashionable .shoe, together with a few other
rubber products of the company.

Another rubber company of smaller size has a larger and more varied exhibit.
The Seamless Rubber Company shows everything from rubber nipples to auto-
mobile tires. Its display is highly interesting, as well as a most illuminating proof
of the versatility of New Haven's manufactures.

Still other lines of rubber are shown by New Haven's third concern in that
line, the Baumann Rubber Company, which has an exhibit including rubber
tubing, rubber balls, atomizers, syringes and fittings.

When the honorable manufactui'ing envoys of the Japanese government were
being shown over New Haven a few years ago their guides emphasized to them
the greatness of this cla.ssie city's corset product. They listened as courteously
as if it were not true that stays do not form any part of the costume of the
women of their counti-y. In pretty nearly every other land except Japan and
the land of the Zulus, New Haven-made corsets are known, l^erhaps it is not
always known that they are made in New Haven. Residents of the city who
would have evidence may view here, to their instruction, the display of Strouse,
.\dler & Company, the Strouse Corset Company and I. Newman & Sons.

The Acme Wire Company, having one of the large modern factories of New

THE UNITED ILLUMINATING COllPANVS BUILDIN(i, NEW HAVEN

-..SisssiMilsr

aill2S£SSS===--'*-

THE ACJIE WIRE COilPANY, NEW HAVEN

AND EASTERN NEW HAVEN COUNTY 191

Haven, manufactures simply magnet wires, but it has a displa.v which enlarges
that statement considerably. It fills two large showcases with the fruits of its
labor, and occupies a place in the exhibit proportionate to its importance.

The Oven Equipment & ^Manufacturing Company is one of the less known
New Haven factories, but m the light of what it has to show it merits a better
acquaintance. It displays the Crawford sectional oven, and the Sentinel lim^
of automatic iron heaters.

The National Folding Box & Paper Company, as even he who runs by its
great factory on the train may observe, is one of the largest concerns in New
Haven, and makes the claim to be the largest enterprise of its kind in the
world. It has an exhibit commensurate with its importance, both in variety
and attractiveness.

The New Haven Truck & Auto Works has the impressive exhibit of a full
grown five-ton truck, plainly a piece of good workmanship, and a convincing
proof that New Haven makes motor vehicles also.

John P. Smith & Company have a gi-eat showing of goods made from wire,
both ornamental and useful, of which fireplace screens, tree guards, bank and
office railings and wire cloth are examples.

The Bigelow Company and the National Pipe Bending Company, neighlior
concerns, have a joint exhibit. The former manufactures boilers of all de-
scriptions, and the latter makes feed water heaters and coils. The nature of
their product is such that its importance cannot be shown, except to the person
technically informed in their line, in such an exhibit. They illustrate, how-
ever, an important branch of New Haven manufacturing.

The Day Company has an attractive booth built of its own product. For its
line is metal cornices and sheet metal and copper work in general, and its edifice
is a canopy that seldom fails to attract attention, and covers some of its other
products.

The New Haven Gas Light Company makes more things than the uninitiated
suppose. Here in its exhibit are samples of gas coke, ammonia and tar prod-
acts, and a line of its mechanical appliances. The opportunity is improved,
also, to set forth its arguments for the use of gas for all purposes. It is a
showing that never fails to hold the attention of the house owner and house-
keeper.

The Hoggson & Pettis Company, one of the growing and important manu-
facturing institutions of the city, has an interesting line of chucks, dies, molds
and similar small machine fittings that the machinist best understands. This
company has since 1849 made a specialty of the designing, developing and per-
fecting of tools for the special purposes of that rubber industry which has been
so important to New Haven.

The New Haven Manufacturing Company, makers of machine tools, display
one of their "New Haven" lathes, a piece of work that appeals to the ma-
chinist as a thoroughbred horse does to the horseman. It is an emphatic proof
of the variety and exactness of New Haven's product.

192 A MODEKN HISTORY OF NEW HAVEN

The Malleable Iron Fittings Company is a Branford concern which is in
many ways so allied to New Haven as thoroughly to belong to this exhibit.
Its showing is a material addition to the variety and virtue of the display. It
comes from a plant which stands high among its class in the United States, pro-
ducing steel fittings for all kinds of high pressure service, steam and gas fittings,
refined malleable iron, semi-steel castings and marine hardware. The display
is well arranged and attractive.

The Howards' Company does an extensive business aside from the numu-
facture of fire brick, fire clay and tile brick, but these are the things which it
can best show in the exhibit. It is one of the progressive concerns of New
Haven, and its display is a significant one.

The Eastern Screw Corporation has a showcase full of small but highly
important, and to the machinist interesting things. The machinist, at least,
knows that they are well made. Though the Eastern Machinery Company has
a similar name it has a distinctly diflferent line, for it makes passenger and
freight elevators. Its goods are somewhat difficult to show in such a place, but
it has a good exhibit of the mechancial end of its business.

The Snow & Petrelli Manufacturing Company has a good showing of its
line of yacht reverse gears, yacht cannons and specialties. James Graham &
Company make brass and composition castings, and have a display of their
goods of which small boat propellers, bells, tire holders and metal hat and coat
racks are varied examples.

New Haven's printing and imblishing companies, as manufacturers, make a
good exhibit. The Tuttle, Morehouse & Taylor Company shows its blank books,
samples of its job printing and its filing cases. The Wilson H. Lee Company
shows its book binding, its printing and some of its office equipment, and also
keeps on file some of the more demanded of its numerous directories. Thomas
E. Elliott, one of New Haven's leading engravers, has an interesting exhibit
of his work. ;\Iarshall, Smitii & Company, lithographers, complete the excellent
showing of the printing and publishing craft.

The Century Brass Company has a neat and notable exhibit of brass fire-
place fixtures, railings and specialties. George W. Hindinger shows that he
makes some fireplace goods such as andirons and fenders, Init of iron, and in
addition fire escapes, grills and steel gates.

New Haven knows that one of its modern and progressive manufacturing
concerns is the English & ilersick Company, but not everybody could say. what
it makes without the a.ssi.stanee of its excellent collection at the exhibit. It in-
cludes automobile and carriage lamps and fixtures, automobile fittings of all
sorts, high grade locks and hinges.

Most users of automobiles have heard of the flavor Radiator Company. It
makes .iust radiators. We also perceive that the Morgan & Humiston Company
is an (lid New Haven concern which makes sash, doors and l)linds. The Lionel
Manufaeturing Company is a producer of electric tnv railwavs. And the New

AND EASTERN NEW HAVEN COUNTY 193

Haven Jlirror and Novelty Company has a surprising variety of mirrors and
picture frames. All of these are well represented.

Among the rest there is a display of contrasts that well illustrates New
Haven's manufacturing versatility. Dairying lias now become a manufacturing
business, as the display of the New Haven Dairy Company proves. New Haven
is not supposed by manj- to be a silver town, but the exhibit of the Regal Silver
Company is a revelation. New Haven's piano art is portrayed by the exhibi-
tion of A. G. Ely & Son. The Globe Silk \\'orks show spool and skein silks iu
variety. The \Yest Haven Manufacturing Company specializes in hack saws and
their machinery. Button, button, who's got the button? The New Haven But-
ton Company, in lots of variety. The Sperry & Amos Company have a great
showing of interior house trim and furniture. Another screw concern with an
attractive variety is the New Haven ^Machine Screw Company. And the Fold-
ing Mattress Company invite to rest on their tempting line of mattresses.

The number constantly grows, and the seeker of sights or instruction might
wander for days around the aisles of the large building learning new things
about New Haven, what its people do and what are the nerves of trade whicli
reach from it to all parts of the earth. A complete history of New Haven
manufacturing would be a wonderful, as well as a romantic story. But this
New Haven ilanufacturers' Exhibit would be needed to illustrate the work.

Vol. 1—13

CHAPTER XXI
THE YALE BOWL

THE NEED WHICH MOTHERED IT AXD THE MAN WHO FATHERED IT — ITS CONSTRUC-
TION ITS DESCRIPTION AND ITS SUCCESS — ITS UNEXPECTED RESOURCES

It came to pass in the infant days of tins century that a great change had
eoaie over the public attitude toward Yale sport. The days when football par-
took of the nature of a burlesque performance, and young men nondescript in
their gai'b and still more nondescript in their actions strove in a crude form of
football on the Green — the only athletic field they had — while townsmen, if they
noticed at all, jeered, had long since passed. Yale had gone out to the far western
boundary of the city and lieyoiid and acquired its own athletic field. This at
first was no more than a practice lot. Then, as baseball and later football
developed, there were erected "bleachers,'' and afterward what were by courtesy
called "grand stands." Still these were mostly for college use. The public,
except through direct relation with the college, was little interested. The larger
football games, which first attracted the attention of the public, were held at
Springfield or New York. There was no need for anything more than a crude
and limited grand stand and l)leachers for the baseball games and the minor
football contests.

Then came the action of the college athletic authorities decreeing that college
games be played on college grounds. This meant that the Yale-Harvard game,
which in the late 'nineties had been attracting increasing general interest, should
be played every second year on the Yale field. The athletic management at once
made plans to enlarge the crude stands, first to accommodate some such crowds
as had witnessed the game at Springfield, say 20,000 people. They did not take
account of the number in New Haven and its vicinity who would care to see
the game. They were made to notice it by the increased demand for tickets
which came every second year. The stands were repeatedly enlarged, until by
1910 they seated about 35,000 people, and engineers told the management that it
had reached the limit of safety with wooden stands of that character. They were
warned, moreover, that so great a mass of wooden timbers and seating, with
so large a number of people, produced a fire hazard which was not to be
disregarded.

194

YALE ROWT>. XKW li.W KX

ST. EOIO HALL, YALE UXlVEKSrrY, XE\V HAX'EN

AND EASTERN NEW HAVEN COUNTY 195

Meanwhile, every year made the situation worse. The demand for tickets
before 1900 was so great that ticket speculation became a scandal, and Yale
men and others who would see the game were robbed by wholesale. Then the
management adopted the plan of allotting the tickets by drawing, from applica-
tions which were limited to Yale graduates only, each one being allowed a given
number of seats. This was five at first, then it was reduced to three ; in the end,
before relief came, it was reduced to two, and there was fear that it would dimin-
ish to one, and that ticket holders would have to stand up to save room.

Yale's athletic managers saw plainly that Yale would have to build some form
of amphitheater or stadium, as Harvard already bad done, as Princeton was
planning to do. The perplexity as to how to manage the matter of the co.st
delayed action. It would never do for the University to finance the thing; it
seemed a hopeless undertaking from volunteer contributions. For it was plain
that no mere 50.000-seat structure would answer. The lesson of the growing
demand for seats was that it must be approximately a doubling of the then
existing capacity, with allowance for further expansion. The Committee of
Twenty-one, a body of men appointed, at the instance of the athletic management,
to look into possibilities, found that a concrete structure seating 50,000, although
probably too small for future needs, woxdd cost at least $750,000, a sum which
staggered the committee. In the face of such an ob.stacle, progress was slow.

Jleaiiwhile, engineers were working on the problem, and it is probable that
some makeshift or other would have been tried, or perhaps the mighty task of
financing a million-dollar structure would have been attempted, had not a true
friend of Yale come to the rescue with an idea that proved the product of
genius. Charles A. Ferry, a New Haven civil engineer, graduated from the
Sheffield Scientific School in 1871. always keenly interested in Yale affairs, and in
close touch with some members of the committee, had become conversant with all
the i-equirements and difficulties of the problem. He had examined with as
little enthusiara as had the members the plans submitted to the Committee of
Twenty-one, most of them hopelessly expensive designs, when something sug-
gested to him a unique plan. Like all great ideas it was ridiculously simple.
It was nothing more than to scoop a great elliptical hole out of the ground, throw
the excavated contents up on the edge for an embankment, and lay out a foot-
ball gridiron on the levelled bottom of the hole and seats all around it, rising
in tiers on the inclined edge of the embankment.

To this idea he applied the test of his engineering knowledge for finding
out what it would cost. His first result was so suspiciously small as to make him
distrust his figures. Apparently the thing could be done for only $150,000.
He went over his estimates again, this time more carefully. He checked the
work in every possible way. The result was not materially different. Then he
lost no time in laying his estimates before the Commitee of Twenty-one. Their
acquaintance with his record as a sound, hard-headed, practical and experienced
engineer gave him their attention at once. But they also thought he must have
erred this time. Still, the matter was worth the most careful examination. His

196 A MODERN HISTORY OP NEW HAVEN

figures were there, in form that any eugiueer could understand. The others
went over them. To their astonishment, they failed to find a flaw in them. Ap-
parently a way had l)een found to build a football amphitheater for something
less than a fifth of the cost they had been considering.

But no chances were to be taken with a mere experiment. The plans and
estimates were submitted to the ablest engineers, and months were spent in
acidly testing them. The figures held. The plan developed no technical faults.
The engineers reported back to the committee that they believed in it. The
committee voted to adopt it. The Ferry vision of an amphitheater such as had
never been built, and apparently never in any large measure had been con-
ceived before, entered the first phase of realization.

With such a plan to arouse enthusiasm, and the financial difficulties of the
task greatly reduced, it became comparatively easy to make a start. The Coni-
mittee of Twenty-one, now an incorporated body with authority to make con-
tracts and acquire property, with a sufficient fund for starting the work, pro-
ceeded with the task. Its chairman was T. DeWitt Cuyler, Tale 74, of Phila-
delphia, and its secretary David Daggett, 79, of New Haven. A few years
])revious to this time the Yale Athletic Association, finding that it would be
necessary for the University's athletic activities to have more room than it was
]>ossible to get on the south side of Derby Avenue, had acquired a new tract of
about 100 acres on the north side, extending along the West River between
Derby Avenue and Chapel Street. Approximately in the center of this tract,
where it could be approached with equal facility from Derby Avenue or Chapel
Street, it was decided to build the football structure. There, early in the summer
of 1913, the unprecedented task was begun.

It was the breaking of ground in more sense than one. That great hole in
the ground which an army of men and horses di-awing "turnpike .shovels"
began to scoop out looked like anything but a football .stand. The general public,
which had not been taken into the confidence of the builders, mostly looked on
to scoff if they noticed at all. Nothing of the sort had ever been attempted
before. The whole thing seemed in the nature of an experiment. But the
engineers knew what they were doing. And the master engineer, the father of
the idea, Mr. Perry himself, was personally in command. He was with the
work from the very beginning. He remained with it, watching with the
minutest care its every detail, until the work was crowned with success. He
had good assistance, but his was the controlling mind from first to last.

That great and growing hole, covering as it grew the space of twelve and
one-half acres, was an amazing sight as the summer of 1913 grew old. There
stood a great confusion of derricks and cement mixers, piles of tile and stone
and lumber, with men and horses and machines of various sorts creeping around
thetn in apparently the most aimle.ss sort of wav. That confusion lasted until

AND EASTERN NEW HAVEN COUNTY 197

the coming of winter forced a cessation of the work. It did not clear materially
when spring came again. But before the work had ceased for the winter the
lower part of the structure had begun to take a shape intelligible to the eyes of
one who understood the plan of the work, and that plan was not difficult to
comprehend.

The excavation was to be elliptical in the proportions of a football gridiron,
and to extend about as far beneath the ground level as the embankment rose
above it. The entrances were to be at the ground level. On each side was to
be a large gateway, for football teams or vehicles. There were to be thirty
portals, tunnels through the embankment, arranged at equal intervals all the
way around the structure, for the entrance and exit of the thousands who should
occupy the seats. The whole interior of the excavation was to be lined with a
substantial plating of cement, rising in steps, to which the seats were to be
bolted. The portals and larger entrances were to be floored with the same
material. There was to be a cement coping between the lower tier of seats and
the playing surface, and a cement retaining wall around the foot of the em-
bankment on the outside of the structure.

Such, in brief, was the plan. Before the work ceased for 1913, the excavation
had been finished, the cement construction of the entrance tunnels was well in
hand and the structure was ready for the interior easing of concrete. It was
desirable to allow the winter to do its work in settling the newly exposed earth
and the thrown-up embankment before going further. That embankment, as
it proved, had over a year in which to settle, and then the engineers found that
its depression amounted to only a fraction of an inch. It was not a structure
that was going to slide or cave.

The following spring, which was the fateful year of 1914, when "the great
war" broke upon the earth, the work proceeded rapidly. The retaining wall was
first built, and from then on the structure began to assume form, and soon after,
comeliness. For the next thing was the grading, and after that the sodding of the
outer embankment and of the gridiron within. All summer and early fall this
grass was watered and smoothed and cared for, and by November the turf on
the playing field was ready to resist even the two hours' strain of striving steel-
shod feet, resulting from a championship football game. It came out of the
ordeal in good shape, considering.

Then there was the cement surfacing of the lower part of the interior and
the placing of the seats. It was thought best to defer the cement covering of
the upper half, partly to postpone the heavier part of the work and expense,
partly to allow the embankment to settle all it possibly could. The apparently
satisfactory working of the structure without this completion, together with
the interruption of college athletics by the war, has delayed the completion of the
cement casing until now. That may, possibly, be a part of the greatly increased
seating arrangement which may be found necessary in the coming years.

Yale's football amphitheater, as it stands at present, is a structure covering,
as has been said, twelve and one-half acres. The base of the excavation is

198 A MODERN IlLSTURY OF NEW HAVEN

twenty-seven and one-half feet below the level of Yale's new field. It rises a
corresponding distance of twenty-six and one-half feet above the entrance level,
making a total depth of fifty-four feet. Measuring over the outer retaining wall
the structure is 930 feet long by 750 feet wide. From the crest of the embank-
ment it is 800 by 600 feet. The gridiron and the level surface inside the seats
measures 500 by 300 feet. Though the lower part of the excavation extends
to a depth below ground surface at which si^rings are expected to be found, and
though the location is not high ground, so carefully has the matter of drainage
been planned for that never has there been the least trouble with dampness, even
when using the gridiron soon after a rainstorm.

The spot is in many ways a jiicturesque one. The longer axis of the ellipse
points nearly north and south. To the northward, towering West Rock stands
ever as a watchful sentinel, wliile in tlie western distance rise the hills and woods
of "Edgewood." long the home of the patron saint of the whole neighborhood.
From the "parapet" lies spread a view of the city and harbor, while in the other
direction are rolling country and the Maltby lakes. The appearance of the
embankment from the distance, and still more on nearer approach, is that of
a fort, and to imagine that those thirty portals screen great disappearing guns
is not difficult.

But such considerations as these have come later. The first thought for the
football enclosure was that of utility. It must seat many thousands. Sixty
thousand was the builder's first idea. Tliat number was slightly increased when
the regular seats were placed, and the press stand, with its accommodation for
newspaper men and photographers from far and near, added several hundreds
more. So equipped, the structure seemed more tlian ample for the crowd which
would come that first year. But long liefore the time for the game with
Harvard, it was found that graduate applications and public sale would run
far beyond the more than 60,000 seats provided, and it was necessary to build
7,000 more seats around the rim. Thus the first game on the new gridiron was
witnessed, all told, by more than 70,000 people. It was supposed that this large
crowd was due to the novelty of the thing, and that those temporary seats would
never be needed again. So, as they marred the symmetry of the upper works,
they were taken down after the game. But in 1916, when Harvard played in
New Haven again, the pressure was worse than ever. Not only were the upper
temporary seats again placed, but extra seating was put in the space within the
footliall enclosure itself. It is proliable that from 72,000 to 73,000 saw that
second game with Harvard. From a Yale standpoint, it was wortliy of the
multitude.

Accommodation for such gatherings as this places this amphitheater in the
very front rank of the gathering places of the modern or the ancient world. Of
old the Colos.seum and the CirciLS Maximus surpassed it, more or less according
to tradition. We have no accurate means of knowang whether they seated all
the crowds accorded to them, or whether they seated them all at once. Other
structures built in England or elsewhere for the accommodation of football

AND EASTERN NEW HAVEN COUNTY 199

crowds have lield more people, liut standing, not sitting. The Yale stand seats
all whom it receives, and seats them comfortably and advantageously. Other
colleges in this country are planning to outdo Yale in this, but up to the present
writing none has provided a structure comfortably seating so many people, and
no other stadium or amphitheater approximates to the facilities for conveniently
gathering, seating and safely dispersing a crowd .possessed by that designed by
Charles A. Ferry for Yale.

Ill

The wonder of it has dawned slowly. It was at once recognized to be unique
among athletic structures. ^Vhat should it be called? It was a "bowl," of
course, but that term, while it might pass in slang, did not at first meet the
approval of the academic mind. Stadium it was not, properly. Amphitheater
was a good old classic term, but too unwieldly. Coliseum was out of the question.
So for convenience they began to call it "The Bowl." It was expected to be a
temporary name, but like the temporary seats, it clung, partly from necessity,
more from fitness. It is interesting to look back and notice how the term has
gradually taken on dignity, until "The Bowl." spoken wherever Yale football
is known, has become one of the most honorable of names.

So has the structure endeared itself, if such a personal description may be
applied to it. to Yale men and friends of Yale near and far. The first thought
for it was that it would hold the crowds, surely in safety, more or less in com-
fort. It was expected, of course, that there would be a wide difference in the
accommodation it gave them. Those nearest the center were expected to be
especially favored. Those on the edges — at the skyline — as even the designer
feared, would greatly need spyglasses. For it was to be remembered that from
the rear seats at the end of the ellipse to the opposite end of the goal line was
a physical distance of over 800 feet. In the old stands there were some very
imdesirable seats. It must inevitably be so in the new one.

But it has not proved to be so. The facility with Avhieh every play of every
game could be seen from every seat has been the growing wonder of those who
have tested the Bowl from all its parts. It is true that those who sit at the
points nearest the side lines see the players in life size, and are able to recognize
some of them without field glasses. But it has been a ciuestion whether it was
better to see the game in that way than it was to have the advantage of the
greater altitude and see it in miniature. There is an effect, from the upper
row-s of seats, somewhat like a view from an aeroplane. And with a good glass,
the doings in the center or at either end of the gridiron are perfectly seen from
every one of the 65,000 seats. There is not a "blank" in the whole collection.

The ease with which the greatest crowds in our football history have been
seated in the Bowl, and the orderliness with which they have been dispersed, have
more than met the expectations of the builders. There has never been anything
like a blockade or a .iara. There is a separate entrance and exit for each 2,000
people, and seats are easy to find. When the game is over, the great multitude

200 A MODERN HISTORY OF NEW HAVEN

goes its thirty different ways without confusion and without any appearance
of mass. It is only when one sits in the great Bowl with every seat filled, with
one solid lining of humanity wherever the eye can reach, that he gets an ade-
quate impression of the vastness of the assemblage. That, indeed, is a sight long
to remember. It is in itself a wondrous feature of every great football game.

For all this, the Bowl has twice failed to hold without a strain as many as
would see the great games. Of the future one can only guess, but there is every
prospect that the coming years may early find it totally inadequate in seating
capacity. In such an event, the designer has a plan. He would build, around
and over the upper half of the seats, a structure like a theater balcony. He
believes it possible to construct perhaps 40,000 more seats in such a way that
all will have a view of the field, and without in any way marring the seats
already there. This would, however, possibly mar the symmetry of the structure,
and would of cour.se cause greater congestion of entrances and exits.

But football does not exhaust the wonders of the Bowl. It has been tested
in other ways, with surprising results. The open air play had been an institu-
tion in many other colleges long before the Bowl was built at Yale, and it was
natural tliat the new structure sliould tempt tlie trial of such a thing at Yale on a
greater scale than elsewhere. It worked out in the presentation, in May of
1915, of Euripides' "Iphigenia in Tauris." Some 15,000 people from the Uni-
versity and from New Haven saw the production, one end of the Bowl and
gridiron being devoted to it. A stage and sounding board were erected, but
there were many who doubted that, even -nnth the aid of these, any except those
nearest the front would be able, in the great open space, to distinguish any of
the spoken words. "What did happen seemed like a marvel. For the Bowl de-
veloped the most surprising acoustic effects. The spoken word was heard with a
distinctness almost uncanny in every one of the seats.

This was a development which surprised the designer as much as anybody.
He had anticipated nothing of the sort. He, like most others, had deemed it an
impossibility that ordinary sounds should reach to the farthest seats. But it
has proved that there is something about the solid consti'uction, something in,
the concave formation, which makes possible the reflection of sound, distinctly
and without confusing echo, to all the seats which face the stage.

Again, something like a year later, the Bowl had a still more trying test.
New Haven, then and now, lacked an adequate place for the production of grand
opera. Everard Thompson, then the manager and promoter of all Yale athletic
events and many of Yale's nmsical attractions, eagerly seized the opportunity
which the Bowl offered to arrange for the production of "Wagner's "Die
Walkuere," with some of the finest of grand opera stars in the east. On a rare
evening in early June the production was staged, and though less than half
of the Bowl was used, it was in size such a gathering as New Haven had never
had before for a musical performance. And again the acoustic effects astonished
all the observing. The transmission of the music was well nigh perfect. Little

AND EASTERN NEW HAVEN COUNTY 201

of the force or shading was lost, while much was added from the thrill of the
open air and the charm of a summer evening.

Then there was the Pageant of 1916, the crowning glory of the Bowl up to
now. The story of that has already been told. But for the Bowl it would not
have been possible in anything like its triumphant success. But for the Bowl,
the people of New Haven and the regions round about it would never have
participated in it as they did. And nothing in its history so far has so well
demonstrated the Bowl's greatness. It was a spectacle par excellence, and for
spectacles, above all, the Bowl is designed.

But we always return to the game; the game's the thing. For that the Bowl
was built, and for that it will mostly be used, though its success for other uses
suggests that many new uses will be found for it. The dedication of the Bowl,
when Yale met Harvard in 1914, was a tremendous success from viewpoints of
crowd and spectacle; it was a mournful occasion to those Yale men and their
friends whose happiness depended on a victory for Yale. It was Harvard's
privilege to light up the goal posts with red fire on the occasion of that first
game, and Harvard was ready to improve it. But there came another time.
Two years later, the story was different. The tables were gloriously turned,
and the Bowl had a real dedication.

The interruption of Yale athletics caused by the war made the Bowl a de-
serted, mournful place in the fall of 1917. Or it would have been, but for the
army camp hard by, and the omnipresent utility-making of preparation for
war. More than once in that summer and fall the Bowl served the cause of
democracy, as it had served many times before, as it will serve unnumbered
times, no doubt, in the years to come. There is no gathering place within the
city that has such a meaning for New Haven. In it great multitudes can be
gathered, entertained, thrilled. All the football games of the seasons of 1915
and 1916, great and small, were held in it, and opportunity was given to every-
body to participate. To spend an autumn afternoon in the open air, watching
some hopeful football team from a smaller college give Yale some excellent train-
ing for the great game — not infrequently give it a lesson in the vanity of
human pride — with the thrill of a multitude attending (it is not unusual for
one of the minor games,' in these days, to have an attendance of 20,000 people
or more), is an experience that makes life an immensely more valuable thing.
They come from the far corners of the state as well as from New Haven, some-
times, to see these minor games, and all are well repaid. It is generally an ex-
perience for all comers that adds greatly to the joy of living.

No mention of the Bowl is complete if it omits the part which Everard
Thompson, who was Yale's governor of the games, in important wa.vs, when the
Bowl was built, had in its development. He approved of the design from the
first. His clear eye saw its possibilities from the viewpoint of public accommo-
dation. When it neared completion in the fall of 1914, he cheerfully essayed
the task of filling its 63,000 seats. He did his work so well that there were more
than 70,000 people ready to fill the seats before he knew it. He provided the

202 A MODERN HISTORY OF NEW HAVEN

seats, too. To prepare and arrange tickets for 70,000 people, to get the tickets
to them and get them to their seats, was a physical task of no small proportions.
Mr. Thompson met it. He developed a system that has been the admiration of
all who have known of it. He handled a staggering situation, and meted out
justice and .satisfaction to all.

Nor should mention be omitted of William V. Bedell, who took up the work
when ilr. Thompson left Yale. The problem of seating and satisfying the
public who wanted to see the Yale-IIarvard game in 1916 was, if anything,
more difficult than at any previous time. But Mr. Bedell, in a way all his own,
solved it so as to win the respect of even the disappointed.

But after all, the Bowl's growing success, and its promise for the future,
which is great, redound to the credit of the designer. A quiet, modest man, on
whose head the years sit lightly, misses few of the events which take place in
the Bowl.* All of them are a part of tlie dream he dreamed — a part of its
fulfillment. He cannot afford to miss them. Charles A. Ferry admits that he
builded better than he knew, but those who know him best believe that his suc-
cess was due to no accident, no lucky hit of genius. It is true in more wava
than are dreamed of in our philosophy that

"The heights by great men reached and kept

Were not attained by sudden flight ;
But they, while their companions .slept

Were toiling upward in the night."

•The Bowl is now the property of Yale I'niversity. On Febrnarv 15, 1918, Tliomas
DeWitt Ciiyler, '74. Cliairman of tlie Committee of Twenty-one. formally handed the property,
wliich np to that time had been the possession of the incorporated Committee, over to Yale.
The oriijinal cost was supposed to be $?.OO.noO. but more than tliat had been expended on
it up to the time of transfer. All tlic money had been secured from the subscription of
graduates and others.

CHAPTER XXII
TRANSPORTATION AND COMMUNICATION

EARLY DEVEUJPMENTS IN TURXPIKES THE MOUTH OF AN INTERESTING CANAl

STEAMBOAT AND RAILROAD LINES — NEW HAVEN AND THE TELEPHONE

The swiftness of our twentieth eentnry is best appreciated by looking back-
ward a little. Only in that way can we understand how many wonderful things
we are taking as a matter of course. In nothing is this as true as in the matters
of transporation and communication. And in respect to these, there has been
in New Haven's history no period to be compared with the past thirty years.

Yet New Haven and its region thought thirty years ago that they had made
a marvelous advance, if they looked backward. The city and its surrounding
towns were wrought out of a trackless wilderness. In 1638 their isolation was
so real that they deemed the territory of less than a hundred .square miles of
which New Haven was the center sufficient for the making of a state. Hartford,
the nearest rival, was a good two days' journey distant, while the nearest
considerable i)oints to the east or west were as safely far away. But if other
events had not cjuickly come in to break up New Haven's notion of sufficiency
unto itself, communication would soon have done it.

For communication was inevitable. Trails and bridle paths radiated in all
dii'eetions from New Haven before the colony was a decade old. The people
would not remain solitary. Expansion and adventure were in the air of the New
World. The constant growth of new settlements, farther and farther from New
Haven, made this inevitable. The people had relatives, friends, acquaintances,
in the other communities. And between these points of interest there must be
ways. That was the beginning of communication, and later, of transportation.

The history of an older time has traced the development of this process.
The trail gave place to the bridle path, the bridle jiath in turn was displaced
liy the turnpike. And the turnpike was a more ambitious thing than we are
wont to think. For instance, there was that New Haven-Derby turnpike, notice-
able because it was the remnant of the old tollgate system which many of those
now living in New Haven can remember. "When that was projected in 1798,
a company was formed with a capital stock of $7,520 to build eight miles of
highway, and received a charter from the legislature. It was not such a won-

203

204 A :\rODERN HISTORY OF NEW HAVEN

derful highway, either. It was a gravel roadway that made "causewa.ys"
through the swamps and bridged the rivers. Road building, as we know it,
had not then been imported to this country. But the road was good enough
so tbat they seemed to he warranted in charging people a good, round sum for
the privilege of traveling over it. Evidently the company made money, too,
judging from the fact that it clung to the toll privilege until 1888.

This was, in the first half of the nineteenth century, but one of a dozen or
more turnpikes which radiated from New Haven, the only means, up to the
coming of the railroad, of connuon travel. "Well might New Haveners, when
the last tollgate was abolished, regarding tht-ir railroad and street railway and
steamboat lines which established communication to and from New Haven at all
points of the compa.ss, deem that great things had been accomplished, and that
they had reached the truly modern age.

We look back from today and smile at their notion that they had arrived.
Even then, they might have considered their established telegraph, their just
developing telephone, the prophecy of the electric car which was already in the
air, and realized their infancy. But if we are inclined to contemn their crude
development, or scorn their lack of belief in greater achievements ahead, we may
well regard our wireless, our still imperfect motor vehicle, our inadequately
realized flying machine, our lack of knowledge of the possibilities of electricity,
our very unsatisfactory steam and electric railroads, and humbly await a day
of better things,

New Haven's transportation development, up to now, has been mainly through
steamship lines, steam and horse and electric railways. But before the rail-
road realh- came to New Haven, before the horse railway was thought of, while
j'et the steamboat was in its begiiniiugs, there came to Connecticut what has
been called the "canal fever,"' of which New Haven felt very marked effects.
Canals had been developed in New York State early in the nineteenth century.
They had, seemingly, proved a success above all other methods of transportation.
New Haven had the water outlet to the broad sea. If New Haven might have
canal connection to the northward, reaching into the commercial and industrial
State of Massachusetts, New Haven commerce would have a great boon. So it
came about that there was constructed that interesting canal from Farmington
to New Haven whose traces still remain in the city itself and in the region
northward all the way to Cheshire and Southington.

It has mostly been forgotten now. It hardly belongs to the period which this
history covers. But there are some things about that canal which the present
generation has forgotten, and they are fascinating ones. Close to a century
ago it was conceived, and transportation and traveling conditions then were such
as to make its possibilities appeal to the imagination. The railroad had not come
to Connecticut. Good roads, as we conceive them now, were dreams only. The
traveler over the highways that were was an almost constant tribute vielder.

AND EASTERN NEW HAVEN COUNTY 205

The fast post-eoach which covered the distance from New Haveu to Hartford in
six hours, was the acme of speed. On the other hand, there was the broad river
Connecticut, free of tollgates, alwajs, except in winter's hibernation, a smooth
and convenient highway. Rivers, even handicapped by crooks and shoals, were
ideal highways. Why not make one that should be straight and sufficiently
deep?

Such was the condition, and such was growing to be the thought, when early
in 1822 representative citizens from seventeen towns. New Haven being promi-
nent among them, met at Farmington and voted to make a preliminary survey
for a canal and raise one thousand dollars for the purpose. The Farmington
Canal Company was chartered in the following May. Though it was named for
Farmington, and though it would appear that the movement started from that
end, New Haven seems to have been the moving spirit in it. Indeed, there was
not a little mention of it at the time, particularly at Hartford, as New
Haven's scheme to rival Hartford as a river port, and have its own river
reaching from the Sound up into the heart of New England. They said scoff-
ingly at Hartford, it is reported, that New Haven had a plan to divert the
waters of the Connecticut from flowing past Hartford, and turn them on to their
own mud flats, on which, added the jester, their own shipping usually stuck
fast.

This canal was to run from the tide waters of New Haven harbor through
Farmington to Southwick, Massachusetts, with a branch along the Farmington
River through New Hartford to the north line of Colebrook — which branch, by
the way, was never built. Some other featiires of the project, as laid out on
paper, and never appearing anywhere else, materially add to the interest with
which it may be viewed now. What was dug was a small part of a grand pro-
ject. The canal was to keep on northward to the state line, there to connect
with the Hampshire and Hampden Canal (also to be constructed) in Ma.ssa-
chusetts. That, on its part, was to be continued northward along the west
bank of the Connecticut River, crossing it at Brattleborough into New Hamp-
shire, and thence, sometimes in Vermont and sometimes in New Hampshire,
it was to push up till it made connection with the watei-s of Lake Memphrema-
gog. From there, naturally, it would be easy to reach the St. Lawrence. New
Haven was to be made a port only a little less important than an ocean terminal.
The Erie Canal was to be made to look like a fishing creek.

There it was — all but the money. The report of the preliminary survey was
that it would cost $420,698.88. This must have been for the Farmington-New
Haven part. Of this amount the Mechanics Bank of New Haveu .subscribed
$200,000. The City of New Haven did not come in at the first, but later sub-
scribed $100,000. The citizens of New Haven ultimately put down $122,900.
Financiers in New York City, in the course of the process, had faith enougli in
the plan to risk $90,000. In Farmington 12.5 shares, or $12,500 were taken.
The rest, up to a total of $541,400, was made up by small investors along the
line of the canal.

206 A MODERN HISTORY OF NEW HAVEN

Aud so the ditch was dug, the lieginning being made at Granby on July
4, 1825. This seemed a proper occasion for the celebration of the nation's in-
dependence, and the proposed independence of all primitive and restricted
means of transportation by the people between New Haven and Farmington.
Two or three thousand people were present to observe the taking of the first
spadeful of eartli from the ditch with suital)le ceremony. Captain George Row-
land navigated a barge up from New Haven — this was a land boat drawn by
four liorses. The Declaration of Independence was read, and the Hon. Jona-
than E. Lyman of Northampton, Massachusetts, gave the oration of the day.
Before that Governor Oliver Woleott made an address and handled the spade
for the main ceremony. About two years later the last spadeful was taken out
with less ceremony, and water was let into the canal at Cheshire. Even the in-
credulous Connecticut Conrant admitted and faithfully recorded that "three
boats and a camion"' had na^^gated the canal from the Sound as far north as
Cheshire.

This was late in November of 1827. Little further seems to have happened
until the following June. Then, amid great glorification, a canal boat named
James Hillhouse was launched at Farmington. and that far inland town seemed
to have realized its dream. At the same time the father of the New Haven
elms, who had also in a sense been the father of the canal, was suitably honored.
He was also the first president of the comitany. By this time the rest of the
digging had been completed, and there was a ditch, soon after navigable, all
the way from Southwiek Ponds to Long Island Sound.

The joy of the inhabitants at this cousuramation seems to have been so great
that about all they would let the canal do for the rest of that yeai' was to
carry excursion parties. All that sunnner its banks resounded with one glad,
sweet song. The staunch canal boat James Hillhouse, plainly marked on the
stern "Farmington Canal," even if it lacked the no less notable inscription
"For Southwiek and Memphremagog"' which the aforementioned boat on wheels
carried, made many trips up and down the narrow but gladsome channel bear-
ing gay parties of merrymakers. Late that fall it seems to have occurred to
those interested that it was about time to devote the expensive ditch to busi-
ness, and boats carrying real freight commenced to be towed up and down.
It became "the port of Farmington." Travelers came that way, and the fame
of the town spread far. This was only a reflected light from New Haven, to be
sure, but New Haven, being then in reality what a distinguished engineer later
called it in so many words, "the key to New England," was content.

So for three or four years everything went as merrily as a marriage bell with
one exception — the thing didn't pay. This may not have seemed a very es-
sential drawback to anyone along the line except the comparative few who
liad invested money, but they began to show concern. The historian casually
remarks that as early as 1828 "the company labored under great embarrassment
from the want of funds, and suffered from freshets and from the work of ma-
licious individuals." Funds began to fail considerably before the essential con-

AND EASTERN NEW HAVEN COUNTY

207

struction was completed. About this time the city of New Haven came to the
hoped for rescue witli its subscription of $100,000, but that did not sufSee. A
financial alliance was made with the Hampshire and Hampden company of
Massachusetts. In one way and another funds were found to complete the
canal to Westfield, and then to the Connecticut River. But it was a new venture,
and the managers lacked experience. The railroads were rivals rather than
auxiliaries, and the Connecticut River still flowed on its independent way.

The upshot of it all was the formation of the New Haven and Northampton
Company in 1836. It took over all the stock of the Parmington Canal Com-
pany, and for the following ten years struggled, with all the added capital it
could gather, to make a go with the canal. But in 183S the railroad was opened
between New Haven and Hartford, and in 1846 the New Haven and Northamp-
ton Company was in self defense forced to obtain a charter for a railroad. It
was a comparatively simple mattei- to lay rails on the towpath of the canal, and
in 1848 this was clone as far as Plainville. Presently trains were running as
far as Farmington, and a few years later the road was completed to Northamp-
ton.

Ill

The short-lived canal went dry. of course, soon after the railroad came, ex-
cept at points where the water would not readily run off. There it remained
an intermittent waterway, according as the season was dry or wet. One idly
wonders how many mosquitoes the old ditch bred in its da.v, after it had ceased
to serve its original purpose. It was utilized, as far as the borders of New
Haven, as a subway for the railway. But in the upper part of Hamdeu, jiar-
tieularly Mount Carmel, it has been up to the present time an eyesore and at
times a nuisance. The money of a few dug it ; the many have been obliged to
fill it up at their own expen.se. As a canal, it is mostly gone now, but its marks
remain in many places.

The development of water transportation from and to New Haven consider-
ably antedated the coming of the railroads. There is mention of the penetration
of Robert Fulton's triumph to this port as early as 1815. Some nine years later
the New Haven Steamboat Company was chartered to run a line to New York,
and soon after 1824 three boats were running regularly. There was no railroad
to New York until 1844. so a working agreement between the Hartford and
New Haven Railroad and the New Haven and New York steamboat line was de-
sirable. It was made in 1838. Meanwhile, other lines had been opened, con-
spicuous among them the Starin and the Propeller lines. There was marked
competition to get the comparatively few passengers of those days, so that the
rate of fare from New Haven to New York fell to twenty-five cents, and even,
for a short time, to half of that. This did not last long. The opposition lines
either took up the more profitable business of carrying freight, or formed a
working agreement. The New Haven Steamboat Company, now for a score of
years and more an ad.iunct of the railroad, has been the steady, reliable means

208 A MODERN HISTORY OF NEW HAVEN

of water trausporation to New York. Of late years it has had practically the
whole business. New Haven's maritime trausporation has not tended to increase.
Witli opportunities surpassing those of Bridgeport, New London or Stonington,
it has remained in the somewhat narrow transportation channel of a single line
to New York. Other ports have branched in many directions, notably in the
matter of excursion or pleasure boats. New Haven, and this means New Haven
people, have failed of support for shipping of this sort. In the nineties, there
was now and then a small excursion steamer to Bridgeport, to some of the Bran-
ford shore resorts or the "Thimbles," or now and then to a Long Island point.
But their life vva.s short. Between 1910 and 1915 Lucien Sandei-son, as a large
part of the Long Island Navigation Company, tried to maintain a daily line,
for about three months each summer, between New Haven and Port Jeiferson,
Long Island. He had a most comfortable and attractive vessel, the New Elm
City, competent to carry passengers, freight and the far reaching automobile.
But the suppoi't was, for most of the time, too slight to balance the expense,
and in 1915 the venture was abandoned. "When the war came, Mr. Sanderson
sold the steamer. Since then, as for some time before, the chief water excursion
excitement of the people of New Haven has been the tempestuous voyage be-
tween Lighthouse Point and Savin Rock.

In the year 1840, there were 117 miles of railroad in the state of Connecticut,
of whicli the only road touching New Haven, that running between this city
and Hartford, constituted about one-third. This road was opened in 1836, hav-
ing been chartered in 1833. As has been said, steamboat connection made it
continuous to New York. Railroading was in its infancy, and was a somewhat
precarious experiment, not cordially trusted by either financiers or travelers.
This may account for the fact that not until 1844 was a line built on to New
York. Meanwhile, as we have seen, the Northampton line had been hastened
into existence by the canal.

That was the beginning of the New York, New Haven & Hartford Railroad.
The building of the line to New London followed hard after. Then there was
the connection to Derby and with the Berksliire division from Bridgeport north-
ward. The "Air Line," which was supposed to connect New York with Boston
by such a route as the crow would take, came along shortly after. This com-
pleted New Haven's railroad radiation with lines under at least six different
ownerships. The amalgamation which followed was inevitable. It was about
1872 that the railroad became the "Consolidated," though the absorption into
it of all the lines touching New Haven was not complete until a little after
that.

There was a contest for a time as to the center of this system. Between the
struggles of the New York and Hartford and Boston financial interests for the
honor and advantage of being the headquarters of the company its heads were
fain to compromise on New Haven. In spite of all that the jealous terminals or
even Hartford could do about it, it became, by almost common acceptance, the
"New Haven road." There was a more than accidental or sentimental reason

AND EASTERN NEW HAVEN COUNTY 209

for this. New Haven is the key to the system. It is an important part, and
will continue and increase to be. Freight will here be transferred from water
to rail eomnnication, and New Haven is the key which unlocks the ways to
western Connecticut, ^Massachusetts, Vermont. Lake Champlain and the St. Law-
rence, northern and northeastern New York, Boston, Maine and Halifax. So
in New Haven the " Con.solidated " road — the title is mostly displaced by "New
Haven" now — erected its $400,000 central office building, and will some day,
New Haven hopes, erect its million-dollar home station.

The railroads which this system now operates, or with which it is affiliated,
have a mileage, if the Boston & Maine is counted in, of exceeding 3,000 miles.
They cover every part of the states of Connecticut, Massachusetts and Rhode
Island, and extend through the most important part of Maine. The three states
tirst mentioned have an area of 14,5.5.5 miles. Their population at present is
estimated as approaching six millions of people. Of these a million or more
are employed in manufacturing, the total of their annual wage is over six
hundred millions of dollars, and the annual valiie of what they produce is only
a little short of two billions of dollars. Most of these people, much of their prod-
uct, the system of railroads which centers in New Haven is called on to move.
It is the most congested, severely tried, complex system in America. Such are
the facilities of this system — or such they were before abnormal conditions
brought it close to paralysis with the breaking of the great war — that freight
could be brought to New Haven from the farthest bounds of the nation and from
other countries of North America, or distributed from the center to any part
of the continent, without change of cars or rehandling of packages.

iMore than a decade ago, with all the main lines double-tracked, the railroad
four-tracked the line from New Haven to New York. This was followed, a few
years later, by the electrification of the New York system. It was the intention
to continue this in the direction of Boston, as well as to extend the four-track
lines, but many plans have been interrupted in the past year or two. Among
these was the electrification of some of the other lines leading out of New Haven.

Nobody guesses, in these days, much about the future of railroad ownership
or management. But whatever it shall be, New Haven's situation assures to it
an increasingly important place in that commerce which the railroad brings. Its
harbor is being steadily improved, though much remains to be done. Into and
out of it go more than 45,000 vessels a year, bearing treasure worth $350,000,000.
Among the items are such things as a billion and a quarter tons of coal,
220,000,000 tons of iron, 1,400,000 feet of lumber, almost 100,000 tons of oysters,
140,000 tons of miscellaneous merchandise. The railroads that pass out of New
Haven carry in a present normal year approximatt^ly a billion tons of mer-
chandise, rolling on 120,000 cars, and bring in about half as much.

The past three decades have been the period of modern street railway de-
velopment in New Haven. In 1888 there were five lines of horse railways in the
city. The fii-st of these to be Iniilt was the Fair Haven and Westville, which
connected the far corners of the town about 1860. That was a toilsome trip of

210 A MODERN HISTORY OF NEW HAVEN

almost five miles, and a great achievement of local transportation. It long re-
mained the important street railway of the city, and still is one of the main
arteries. In the following five years West Haven became sufficiently important,
and Savin Rock so attractive, as to demand a second car line. The same year
a line was constructed out Whitney Avenue past the lake and on, soon after,
to Centerville. It was manufacturing development that demanded this. Then
came the State Street line in 1868. and the line to Allingtown, afterward known
as the Sylvan Avenue line, in 1872. The Dixwell Avenue line was built a few
years later.

Then the ultimate seemed to be accomplished, and New Haven did nothing
more with street railways, except to moderately extend these lines as the traffic
demands grew, until 1891. Then dawned the electric era. The first electric
line in New Haven was practically new road, though it followed the State Street
line from the Green as far as the corner of State and James streets. Thence it
ran down James to Lamberton, out Lamberton to Ferry and thence to the foot
of Ferry. Out of this came, shortly after, the extension to IMorris Cove, then to
Lighthouse Point. The first part of this road, equipped with the then successful
trolley (a preliminary experiment with storage battery cars liaving proved a
failure), wa.s opened about 1891. The old West Haven line, with some improved
connections, wa.s about this time acquired by a company of which Israel A.
Kelsey was the moving spirit. The lines already operated were electrified, and
new lines were built from City Point through the center and out Winchester
Avenue to the great factory. In connection with this, about 1896, the Edge-
wood Avenue line was built, entering Westville over a continuation of what had
been Martin Street, now renamed, all the way from its beginning at Park Street,
between Chapel and Elm, to its ending at Forest Street, Edgewood Avenue. The
Fair Haven and Westville soon followed after this with electrification. Its
line, some years after that, was extended from Fair Haven east up through
North Haven to Wallingford, where a connection had alread.y been made with
Moriden.

The other developments were mostly those of expansion. Fair Haven and
Westville lines had been built on East and West Chapel streets before the road's
absorption in the Connecticut system. The Wliitney Avenue line was extended,
in 1902-4, on from Centerville to Mount Carmel, and then to Waterbury by
way of Cheshire. Previous to this time a new line had been built to Derby, pass-
ing by Yale Field, and in 1904-5 this was carried on through Ansonia, Seymour,
Beacon Falls and Naugatuck to connect with the Waterbury line. The Con-
necticut Company had absorljcd the whole system in the meantime, and soon
it also took in the New Haven connections of the Connecticut Railway and
Lighting Company. This gave New Haven connection with Milford, Stratford
and Bridgeport and the intervening shore resorts. Along the east shore from
New Haven there was a line through East Haven, Short Beach and Double
Beach and Pine Orchard to Branford and Stony Creek. Finally came the Shore
Line Electric Railway, then and still an independent company, giving New

AND EASTERN NEW HAVEN COUNTY 211

Haven continuous trolley coiineetion with North Branford, Guilford, Madison
and the other towrus along the shore as far as the Connecticut River, running
also up the river as far as Essex and Chester.

One may travel now, by way of New Haven, continuously by trolley from
New York to Boston. Or again by way of New Haven, he may go from New
York' along the Connecticut shore to New London or Stonington, then, turning
northward, go on to Boston by way of Putnam and Worcester. New Haven
thus becomes one of the most important trolley centers in the east, and seems
destined to grow in importance with the growth toward perfection (a growth
just at present greatly to be desired) of the system of electric railway trans-
portation. New Haven's trolleys connect with Bridgeport and the intervening
towns ; with Watcrbury and intervening towns by two routes, via Derby and
Cheshire; with ^Meriden, with Hartford, with all the towns to the northeast and
east of the city. They form the pojiular and convenient pleasure and business
route to and from the city, and make a large part of its life and commerce.

But the messengers l)y water or by rail have proved too slow for this swift
age. Other means of communication have materially contributed to the strength
and efficiency of the modern New Haven, and in their development the city has
had a peculiar and important jiart. The electric telegraph had come to New
Haven, as to other eastei-n conniiunities, at about equal pace with the railroad.
The Atlantic cable, which came within a few decades afterward, has an interest,
if not for New Haven specifically, at least for the New Haven district, for the
father of Cyrus West Field, who laid the cable, was born in ]Madison when it was
East Guilford, and the Field connection with this section was more or less closely
continued until recent years. New Haven had the telegraph service in increas-
ing extent, and has it more than ever now. Its nerves of wires go to all the
world, and are increasingly used to run its business and serve the needs of all
its people.

In the early development of another connuunication medium of prime im-
portance New Haven had a conspicuous and continuing part. Neither Connecti-
cut nor New Haven had anything to do, so far as is known, with the invention
of the telephone, but here, as many well know, was established the first com-
mercially operated, working telephone exchange, forty years ago. New Haven
was the first community to make the telephone a reality.

So common an instrument of everyday life is the telephone now, and so
familiar a textbook is its directory, that the first list of subscribers of the "New
Haven District Telephone Company" is to most persons a genuine curiosity.
When early in 1877 the Connecticut legislature granted a charter to George W.
Coy to establish a telephone company in New Haven, with a capital of $5,000,
the state did not take particular notice. Plere Avas a move by some visionary.
But in the first month of the following year Mr. Coy and his associates com-

212 A MODERN HISTORY OF NEW HAVEN

pleted plans for their New Haven service, and the exchange was opened in a
store on the first floor of the Boardman Building, at the comer of State and
Chapel streets, on P'ebruary 21, 1878. The switchboard was less of an affair
than many a business concern now has for its department exchange. There
were just forty-seven subscribers, and their names were printed in large type
on one side of a seven by nine sheet of paper. No numbers were attached. • The
"centrals" — there must have been a force of two of them, one for night and
one for day— remembered without difficulty how to ''plug in" for their less than
half a hundred subscribers, and it is unlikely that the wires were very busy in
those first few moutlis. It was a business institution mostly. The list included
twelve residences, three physicians, two dentists, eight "miscellaneous," seven-
teen stores, factories and the like, four meat and fish markets, two hack and
boarding stables. It might be considered in a sense an honor roll, and it is well
to record it here:

Residences — Rev. John E. Todd, J. B. Carrington, H. B. Bigelow, C. W.
Seranton, George W. Coy, G. L. Ferris. H. P. Frost, M. F. Tyler, I. H. Bromley,
George E. Thompson, Walter Lewis.

Physicians— Dr. E. L. R. Thompson. Dr. A. E. Winchell, Dr. C. S. Thomp-
son, Fair Haven.

Dentists— Dr. E. S. Gaylord, Dr. R. F. Burwell.

Miscellaneous — Mercantile Club, F. V. McDonald Yale News, Police Office,
Postoffice, Quinnipiac Club, Register Publishing Company, Smedley Brothers
& Company, M. F. Tj'ler Law Chambers.

Stores, Factories, etc. — C. A. Dorman, Stone & Chidsey, New Haven Flour
Company, State Street, Congress Avenue, Grand Street and Fair Haven stores,
English & Mersiek, New Haven Folding Chair Company, H. Hooker & Com-
pany, W. A. Ensign & Son, H. B. Bigelow & Company. C. S. Mersiek & Com-
pany, Spencer & ^Matthews, Paul Roessler, E. S. Wlieeler & Company, Rolling
Mill Company, Apothecaries' Hall, E. A. Gessner, American Tea Company.

Meat and Fish Markets— W. H. Hitchings, City Market; George E. Lum,
City Market, A. Foote & Company, Strong, Hart & Company.

Hack and Boarding Stables — Cruttenden & Carter, Barker & Ransom.

This was a start, but not a paying one. The nature of the list of subscribers
might indicate that a few of the substantial citizens of New Haven took the
telephone seriously, Ijut this was not a support on which a profitable business
could be maintained. Something must be done to increase the income, and the
managers sent out a thousand circulars explaining the service in detail, and
appealing to New Haven for support. It is related that out of that effort was
realized a net result of one new contract, even at the very moderate rates then
prevailing.

The switchboard, which was operated at first only between six a. m. and
two a. m., was in the beginning a very crude affair. Making a connection with
a subscriber was not a rapid process, and when three connections had been made,
that ended the extent of communication until somebody rang off. "Wire's

AND EASTEKN NEW HAVEN COUNTY 213

iSusy" would have been au almost constant condition but for the fact that
people had not learned how to use the thing, and conversations, compared with
now, were brief and far between. Aside from this, connections were bad, the
use of the instrument difScult and results often indistinct and unsatisfactory.
It is almost impossible for one who knows the telephone only as it is today, with
its prompt, easy and accurate service, to imagine what that primitive, pioneer
system was like.

But we have before us now abundant proof that it wasn't a failure. It lived
because it had a mission. It won success by deserving it. And New Haven
remained the scene of its development and growth. Those who had an interest
in the success of the telephone as an instrument, we may suppose, carefully
watched over the matter of its working in those early days, but the success of
the business institution which has served the people of Connecticut for forty
years is due to the ability and hard work of citizens of New Haven. George
W. Coy, to whom the first charter was granted, is not easily recalled. He early
associated with him Herrick P. Frost and "Walter A. Lewis, both of New Haven.
But the man at the practical end in those first days was John W. Ladd. He
was plant man then, and he is the only man in the company's service now
who lias been with it from the beginning. He is now general claim agent.

Once started, the business grew apace. It was not long before the scope of
the company was enlarged beyond the New Haven district, Hartford, Bridge-
port, Middletowai, Meriden and New Britain being included in the circuit. About
that time it became necessary for the concern to have more adequate quarters,
which it secured in the Ford Building across the street. As early as 1880 a
union was made with the Western Union Telegraph Company, and the name
was changed to the Connecticut Telephone Company. In 1888 the company
secured land on Court Street and commenced the erection of the building which
for nearly thirty years served as its central exchange and general oifices. In
1890, with a service list of 3,000 subscribers, the Southern New England Tele-
phone Company was incorporated. In the course of time this became a con-
stituent part of the Bell system, but it has largely retained its New Haven
directorate, and almost entirely its New Haven management.

A few figures of contrast may best show at once the growth of forty
years and the size of the communication service which gives New Haven
peculiar distinction in the telephone history of America. That single exchange
of 1878 has grown to sixty-nine, from which are served the people of 695 cities,
towns or villages in and near this state. The forty-seven subscribers, with their
fifty stations, have grovm to exceed 130,000, who use 146,164 telephones, and
make as high as 705,564 calls a day. In place of the single sheet, containing on
one side all the patrons, is a closely printed volume of 420 pages, each of them
larger than that sheet. There is not a town in this state, and there is hardly
a hamlet, that is not reached by the universal wires. In New Haven itself, the
forty-seven subscribers have grown to exceed 15,500.

Of the thirteen towns historically considered here, ten have their independent

214 A MODERN HISTORY OF NEW HAVEN

telephone exchanges. From the New Haven central district are served West
Haven, Woodbridge, Hamdeu, Mount Carmel and North Haven. Orange has
its central for that part of the town that is out of West Haven. Wallingford
and Meriden each serve their towns. The Brauford division takes care of Bran-
ford and North Branford, which includes a part of Northford, the other part
o-oing direct to New Haven. East Haven is mainly limited to the town.
Cheshire has its own central. So have Guilford and Madison.

The $5,000 capital which seems to have sufficed the company in 1878 has
grown to $12,000,000, and 1917 saw an increase of $1,000,000. The wire mileage
of the company at the end of 1917 was 4:39,919, and 41,705 had been added in
that year. The net income for that year was $810,733.21, of which $770,000
went to the stockliolders in dividends, leaving .$40,733.21 to he added to the
company's surplus. That now amounts to $610,996.33.

These outside towns arc well supplied with telephones, for it has been the
policy of the company to give service at a price which sliould make it possible,
to have a telephone in almost eveiy home. In the cit^ of Meriden there are
2,820 subscribci's. Walliugfovd has 1,050. That part of Orange which is strictly
rural has 117, the greater number of the telephones of the town being, of course,
in West Haven, which is a division of the New Haven system. The Branford
exchange has 827 subscribers, taking in Stony Creek and the shore resorts, to-
gether with North Branford. Cheshire has 279 telephones. East Haven lists
234. Guilford was 386 sulisciil)ers. scattered all the way from Guilford Point to
the Durham line on the north, and IMadison, with an even longer stretch from
shore to north end, has 317. It should be said here that nothing that has come
to these towns in the last two decades, with the possible exception of the rural
free delivery, has so bridged their isolation and changed their character as has
the telephone.

Several years ago it became apparent to the management that the company
would soon outgrow even the commodious quarters built for it on Court Street in
1889. Late in 1916 work was begun on a new building adjoining the old one,
and that, now completed, towers seven stories above the old building. The
removal to these new quarters was effected in the early part of 1918.

]\Iany changes have come to the management of the company since those
pioneer days of 1878. Outside capital has come in to some extent, and telephone
experts have come from other points to handle the phenomenally growing busi-
ness and meet its problems, but the management has continued to be essentially
New Haven. In 1916 John W. Ailing, who had been its president for many
years, retired, and James T. Moran, its able general manager, was moved
up to the presidency. At the same time Harry 0. Knight, one of the ablest of
the younger members of the institution, and a citizen in whom New Haven de-
lights, was made vice president and general manager. The other officers at
present are :

Secretary and treasurer, Charles B. Doolittle ; assistant seeretaiy and assist-
ant treasurer, Clinton J. Benjamin ; general auditor, Ellis B. Baker, Jr. ; chief

AND EASTERN NEW HAVEN COUNTY 215

engineer, Edwai-d II. Everit; general commercial sm^erinteudent, Johnstone
D. Veitch; general superintendent of plant, Ernest L. Simonds; general super-
intendent of traffic, Frank L. Moore ; general agent, Frederick P. Lewis ; general
claim agent, John W. Ladd.

These are efficient means of transportation and communication, but New
Haven still has dreams. It has seen, in forty years, the wonder of the telephone
grow into a commonplace. It has seen the network of wires which used to he
the material symbol of electric communication of telegraph and telephone almost
entirely disappear — for New Haven has buried them, to the general safety and
welfare. It has seen, in not more than a decade and a half, the universal motor
vehicle expand from a faddish experiment to a utility. It has seen the once mar-
velous wireless telegraph reduced to the plaything of a schoolboy, and one time
a common thing over many of the houses of the city. What wonder if it looks
forward to the time when all present means of communication shall be made
flat and stale and prosaic by the airship? That, indeed, would be a much less
wonderful fulfillment of promise than the fathers of the generation now young
have seen in thirty years.

CHAPTER XXIII
THE SOCIAL EVOLUTION

NEW HAVEN AND THE MELTING POT RACES REPRESENTED AND THEIR DISTRIBUTION

IN THE CITY THE PROCESS OF ASSIMILATION^ IN NEW HAVEN AND THE ADJOIN-
ING TOWNS

New Haven was settled by good, straight, English stock. The people on the
good ship Hector were not from one village, by any means, but they were in a
literal sense fellow countrymen if not neighbors, and there was much less of a
mixture of origin than on the ^Mayflower. They did not for many years, even
for several generations, think of drawing any race lines. They welcomed to their
new community all who were willing to adopt their way of worshipping God and
their form of religious government. That was a stricter exelusiveness than
any race lines could have made, but they did not stop to think of it. It was pretty
well understood so, however, by all who would come here. The experience of
the Quakers, and later the followers of some other alien beliefs, in other New
England colonies was such as to warn "heretics" not to experiment with New
Haven.

So the seventeenth century and the eighteenth century came and went,
and even the nineteenth century found New Haven a community of well de-
fined Engli.sh stock. The fact that the 5,085 people of New Haven in 1756 had
increased to only 8,327 in 1820 would appear to be fairly conclusive proof that
most of the increase had come from home stock, not from immigration. Few
thought of such a thing as immigration, in fact. Newcomers were welcome, for
there was much room, and the town needed people. But few of them were
strangers. None were aliens, as we have come to nse the word.

There did begin, however, in the decade following 1820, an immigration
movement. Our wars for independence had come to a successful close, and
peace seemed ahead. Prosperity blessed the land. New Haven was in some
senses the first station beyond the great New York port of entry. The real tide
of Irish immigration did not begin, indeed, until after the great potato famine
of 1842-44, but previous to that time a few of the lovers of liberty had found
their way to this famed land of the free. Being here, it was natural that they
should seek out such a truly free community as New Haven.

216

AND EASTERN NEW HAVEN COUNTY 217

It would be the delight of the statistician to trace in detail the immigi-ant
development of New Haven. It was at fii-st so gi-adual that few noticed it until
they found themselves crowded by strange newcomers, found the old and once
aristocratic sections of the city altered in unexpected ways. It was late in the
nineteenth century, however, that New Haven awoke to the fact that it was
a Babel— awoke with more or less alann. For be it known that there had entered
into the New Haven society, in the course of the first two centuries of its life,
a spirit of aristocracy. It had developed quite early, if one takes the trouble
to trace it. It was, as we have seen, a most exclusive state which Davenport and
Eaton hoped to establish and maintain. Its citizens should be only the "elect"
by the religious test. The air of the place was to be made unhealthy for others.
They did not, indeed, succeed in building up just such an aristocracy as that.
The heterodox, as the first purists would have regarded them, did get in. Yet
there is a certain pride of birth, an ancestral snobbishness wholly unbecoming
the comparative youth of the country, that has become characteristic of New
England. And New Haven is, despite the greater distinction in that respect
which has lieen accorded to some other communities, a truly New England town.

There was a certain irony, then, in the fact that New Haven was destined
to be emphatically a "melting pot.'' The typically New England community,
with all its pride of English origin and colonial tradition, with its presumption
to a sort of Americanism which exists mainly by aid of the imagination, has come,
in the past three decades, to be one of the most striking illustrations in America
of the process of making Americans out of the raw material. For though of
course New Haven displays nothing like the mass of the larger centers of popu-
lation, it does present a clearer example of the process than can be found else-
where. The background is sharper and the air is clearer. And let it be said here,
to the credit of New Haven and the men and women of vision who consciously
guide the making of New Englanders out of those who come here from all lands
of the earth, that the process is in a conspicvious degree a success.

It should also be noted, withal in justice, that not all of the prideful New
Englanders have taken the change gracefully. There was, in the years before
the older residents yielded to the inevitable, much scoi'uful talk of "foreigners,"
much disgruntled shifting of residence in the hope of getting permanently out
of their zone. There has been much complaint of the mingling of "classes"
in the schools, and some degree of success in the effort to establish residence
districts where the superior young Americans should not be compelled to asso-
ciate with these "foreigners." But those of discernment have observed that
the effect of the earnest struggles for education of those who welcome their
New AYorld jn-ivileges has had a stimulating rather than a baleful effect on self-
sufficient young scions of the "old stock," and learned the wisdom of holding
their peace.

It was not until after the census of 1840 that New Haven took what could
be called a spurt in population. The census figures for both 1830 and 1840

218 A MODERN HISTORY OF NEW HAVEN

had sliown a healthy increase. It was in 1810, it will be remembered, that
New Haven's population figures first made for it the decided claim of first city
of the state. The 6,967 of that year had become 8,327 in 1820, had grown to
10,678 in 1830 and 14,390 in 1810. Then, in 1850, New Haven first showed the
effect of immigration. The town's 20,338 of that year included 3,697 of what
the census discriminators are pleased to call foreign born. These were mostly

Irish, no doubt.

This proportion of aliens grew gradually, not alarmingly, as we now view
immigration increase, in the decade from 1850 to 1860. The census that year
revealed 10,615 foreigners in a total of 29,267. It may well have disturbed the
exclusive New Englauders not a little to discover over 27 per cent of aliens
in their midst. They did lament about it more or less, as we know. But of
the 10,645 who had come by that time, 7,391 were Irish. They had come to
escape famine, it was understood. Mere human sympathy must repress any
protest at such a process of humanity. There were, to be sure, 1,842 Ger-
mans and Swedes, and 1,412 of all other races— we do not now know just how
many that meajit — in the city in 1860.

Ten years more, and tlie proportion of the foreign born had not only
slightly increased, but it had become slightly more variegated in character.
There were 14.346 aliens in 1870. Again the Irish markedly led, though their
increase was not material. They had, in that census, 9,601. Here for the
first time we have the English and Scotch reckoned as "immigrants" or for-
eigners — 1,087 of them. Of (iermans and Swedes there were that year 2,423,
while the "all others" had slightly dropped to 1,235. The percentage of the
foreign born to tlie total population was that year 28.2.

The census of 1880 for the first time revealed in New Haven a warning of
the Italian invasion whicli has in the years since disturbed a good many citizens
too much. In a total which had by that time grown to 14,346 there were 102
credited to Italy. The influx from Ireland had practicality stopped, showing
only 29 increase over the figures for 1870. The increase had come mostly from
Germany and Sweden, from England and Scotland, which together .showed 3,160
more than ten years earlier. The unclassified had grown to 1,776. But New
Haven's total population that year was 62,882. The percentage of aliens to
natives was thereby lowered to 24.9 — a marked decrease.

But the real Italian invasion began in the following decade. The year
1890 found 1,876 of them in New Haven who had not been born there. That
in itself, however, was not so startling; the increase of Germans and Swedes
had been much greater — from 2,802 to 5,514. The Irish, also, had increased
their number almost a thousand, and still led with double the number of any
other nationality. The English and Scotch were still sending along a good
number, though their figures had dropped below the Italian. This year revealed
for fhe first time the rapid influx of Russians, which in New Haven's case
means the people more specifically designated as Russian Jews. There were
1,160 of them in New Haven then. The total number of foreign born in 1890

AND EASTERN NEW HAVEN COUNTY 219

was 10,574 out of au entire population of 81,298, or a perceutago of 28.2, the
equal of that of two decades later.

All innnigration boomed along merrily in the deeade from 1890 to 1900.
Tho Irish, to he sure, seemed to have stopped coming, and though they still led
the list, had dropped their total to 10,491. The English and Scotch showed a
reasonable increase to 1,912. The Germans and Swedes jumped to 6,119. This
was the decade of large Italian arrival, for their number had increased to 5.262.
The Russian Jews had done well, however, with 3,193. There was an impressive
showing of 3.825 "'all others." The total population of New Haven then was
108,027, and the percentage of foreign to native had risen to 28.5.

But the.se figures inadequately represent the population proportions of New
Haven by the time the la.st census was reached. While tlie melting jtot process
had been going on since before 1860, there had also been a steady increase of
what is eommonlj- regarded as foreign population. For there was a population
technically classified by the census takers a.s "native, but of foreign or mixed
parentage," which w^as larger than the strictly foreign born population found
in 1910. It is time, however, to reckon a wider variety of nationalities. The
census of 1910 classifies fifteen principal nativities. It groups Indian, Chinese
and Japanese, in addition to negro. Its "all others," therefore, must include
some thirty other languages and dialects which were known to be represented
in New Haven by this time.

Other estimates, more recent than that of the census of 1910, luive been made
of the number and distribution of the representatives of the races and languages
in New Haven. But the census figures are the only ones that present with any
satisfying reliability the comparisons desired. The so-called illiteracy restric-
tion of Congress, and still more the great war, had the effect of checking innni-
gration about the middle of 1914, so that figures as of 1910 are, with the excep-
tion of the increase by birth rate, approximately illustrative of conditions at
this writing. It will be of interest, then, to notice what the census of 1910
revealed as to the makeup of New Haven's population.

There were 133,605 persons in New Haven at that time. It is known that
the population of the city has grown, at least temporarily, very rapidly in some
of the years since. The increase has not come from immigi-ation, but from the
establishment here of certain great industries, and the enlargement of those
already here, for the manufacture of war material. This increase may be
assumed to be largely of what we should call "native" population. Various
guesses have been made as to its total, but most of them are as inconclusive as
the answers which, short of the census of 1920, will be made to the question
whether New Haven still is, in population, the largest city in Connecticut. A
conservative estimate is that New Haven had 175,000 inhabitants early in 1918.

However, 32.2 per cent of the people of New Haven in 1910 were foreign
born, the largest percentage at any time in its history. The number was 42,884.
These came from various lands and tongues as follows : Austria, 1,109 ; Canada
—French, 461; Canada— other, 855; Denmark, 265; England, 1,867; France.

220 A MODERN HISTORY OF NEW HAVEN

160; Germany, 4,114; Hungary, 473; Ireland, 9,004; Italy, 13,159; Norway,
207; Russia, 7,9S0; Scotland, 724; Sweden, 1,446; Turkey, 186; China, Japan
and India, 100; all other foreign countries, 774.

This totid of 42,884 must be taken with the larger number of 49,434 of
inhabitants called native, but of foreign or mixed parentage. Either figure
.stands in somewhat startling contrast to the mere 37,726 reckoned "native
white, of native parentage," and the total of the two, 87,160, is an ominous
comparison, if one chooses so to regard it, with the considerably less than half
of that which still remains as native stock in New Haven. One may observe,
with or without emotion, according to his degree of accurate knowledge, that a
tenth of the people of New Haven were born in Italy, and that rather more
than a fifth of them may be called Italian. Probably one-sixth of them are
Irish, but that no longer jars the old. resident. Con.siderably more than one in
each ten is a Russian, and of course the number of those of the Hebrew race
and Jewish faith is considerably more than that. Recent events give a new
significance to the fact that 1,109 of those found in New Haven in 1910 were
born in Austria. Moreover, the number of Germans newly arrived in 1910
suggests that the Teutonic popidation of New Haven just previous to the out-
break of the war was much greater than might have been inferred from the
city's slight trouble with enemy aliens. The scattering nations not classified in
the above list are, of course, negligible. The problem, if any problem is pre-
sented, is with those peoples which have large representation.

They have had a large influence on the social arrangement of New Haven,
as has been indicated. Naturally, they have been gregarious. New Haven, like
all cities which have felt the surging of the alien tide, has its Ghetto, its ' ' Little
Italy," its "New Poland"' and its own Lithuania. The Italians, most numerous
and needing the most room, are most widely separated. They are strongly rep-
resented in seven of the fifteen wards, the Third, Fourth, Fifth, Sixth, Seventh,
Ninth and Twelfth, which means tluit they prevail in tlie southern, the south-
eastern and to .some extent in one of the northern wards of the city. Their
stronghold is the Fifth Ward, streets like Wooster, lower Chapel, parts of Water
Street, Olive, Fair and Brewery being theirs almost exclusively. ^Mention has
'been made of their prevalence around Wooster Square. The adjoining section
of Chapel Street, which forty years ago wa.s one of the most exclusive of New
Haven, ha.s changed its character entirely. There was a time when many agreed
that it had changed for the worse, but it has come about that even some particu-
lar citizens no longer despair of New Haven's Fifth and Sixth wards.

The Russian, or more typically the recently arrived Jewish population, is
more condensed. Lower Oak Street and a part of Congi-ess Avenue form a com-
munity of their own, in large measure. Time was when sensitive citizens
avoided it. Now they find pleasure, and not a little instruction, in studying it.
Time was when many regarded it as a plague spot, and there are more savory
and cleaner spots today. But the observant notice that these new citizens are
as willing to learn and as amenable to common sense as to the laws of health

AND EASTERN NEW HAVEN COUNTY 221

when they understand them as are many who have lived in New Haven more
years.

Citizens of German origin seem to have formed themselves into two groups,
but even these are hardly condensed in any such manner as those of the newer
arrivals. This was to be expected, for it is shown that in the case of everj-
nationality in New Haven the longer the residence the greater the mingling.
There is, however, a strong German representation on the western side of the
Second Ward, particularly in the district of which Winthrop Avenue and George
Street form two boundaries. This laps over into the Third Ward until it meets,
somewhere in the vicinity of Congress Avenue or beyond, the stronghold of the
Irish in the Fourth Ward. There is a large German element, less marked in
area, in the Eighth and Ninth wards. This seems to be an expansion or over-
flow. New Haven was never inclined, up to the time of the war, to draw any
lines against the Germans. They were regarded a.s the most welcome of new
Americans, supposed to make one of the most valuable of the forming elements
of our citizenship. The war produced a condition most trying to these people.
Always loyal in spirit to the fatherland, even if they did not wholly approve
all the ways of its ruling class, they sedulously refrained from any expressions
criticising its war. But on tlie other hand, realizing the worth of the country
they had made their own, and their duty and del)t of citizenship to it, they were
estopped from questioning its course. Their position before we entered the war
was an embarrassing one ; afterward it was at times extremely critical. If they
gave utterance to any feelings they might have they were blamed ; if they kept
silence they were suspected. They had the sympathy of those who knew them
best, and in the main the eonfidenee of the discerning. They must-await the just
outcome of reconstruction.

New Haven some time since lost the habit of regarding the Irish as immi-
grants. The original source of increase of its population from other lands, they
had grown into the life of the people through a presence of fifty years, to the
extent that their alien origin had almost been forgotten. Yet the fact has to
be mentioned that up to 1900 they led the nimilier of foreign born at each census,
and that in 1910 for the first time they were passed, their numerical conquerors
being the Italians. However, the census of 1910 showed 9,004 persons born in
Ireland, almost one for each fifteen of the whole population. The percentage
of Irish had not been gi-owing by immigi-ation very rapidly in the previous
decades, but enough is known of the increase of this race to show that it has a
great strength in the New Haven of today. In 1900 the Irish had over 30 per
cent of the total foreign born population. It is a reasonable estimate that those
of foreign Irish birth, and those born of Irish or mixed parentage, together
make at present almost 70 per cent of the whole number of alien origin, and a
very substantial minority of the total population of New Haven.

The area occupied by newcomers who are classed as Austrian is about as
indefinite as the classification itself. For most of those called Austrian in the
census are popularly identified by other names. Prominent among them are

222 A MODERN HISTORY OF NEW HAVEN

Czechs and Slovaks and Moravians and Bohemians. Seekers of liberty, appreei- ,
ating fully the privilege of American residence if not of American citizenship,
they have proved, in the main, loyal citizens of this country even in the great
war. Their location in the city is shown most noticeably in the returns from the
Third. Fourth and Eleventh wards, but so scattered are they that it is not feasi-
ble to trace them more exactly.

New Haven has a comparatively small number of French Canadians, found
mostly in the Ninth and Twelfth wards. The sons of France itself, and of Den-
mark, Norway, Sweden and Turkey are pretty evenly scattered. There is a fair
sprinkling of Greeks, but not sufficient to give them a separate census classifica-
tion. The Indians, Chinese and Japanese are found to be most plentiful in the
First \Vard, though there is a representation in every ward except the Thirteenth
and Fourteenth.

The census considers the negro population by itself; New Haven in general
has shown a like disposition as to segregation. Not that there is a deliberate
resolve to draw the color line; there is, on the contrary, much pretense against
it. But there is what amounts to a definite separation of these people by them-
selves, and most of them, after a short experience with the spirit of New Haven,
are resigned to what naturally appears to theui the inevitable. The Ninth, as
is well known, is their ward. New Haven has no gi'ound for fearing any '*black
peril," as the figures plainly show. There were in New Haven in 1850, 19,356
wliite persons to 989 colored persons. The number of so-called native born was
only 16,641 to 3,697 foreign born. This indicated a pei'centage of 4.8 colored
to the total population as against a percentage of 13.4 foreign born to the total
population. Thirty years later the number of colored persons was 2,192 to a
total population of 62,882 ; again.st this, the number of foreign born was 15,668
to 47,214 native. This was a percentage of 3.4 colored against a percentage of
24.9 foreign born. Thirty years more, and there were 3,561 colored in New
Haven's 133,605 population. There were out of the same total 42,784 foreign
born. This represented a percentage of 2.7 colored to 32 per cent foreign born.
The colored percentage has decreased in eveiT decade, reaching its lowest point
in 1910, There has been since that date the notable exodus of colored people
from the South to the North due to the disturlied labor conditions caused by the
war, for which no reliable figures are available. This may show a marked
change in the proportions, but there seems at present no real ground for regard-
ing it as serious. In any ease, the colored people of New Haven are well able
to hold their course of steady progress and self respecting citizenship which has
made them in the past an element of strength and value in the city's population.

Ill

New Haven has no genuine race troubles between colors or between tongues.
It is a peaceful city. The very air is conservative. Its people dwell together
in harmony. Each race and people is permitted, with a freedom that in the

AND EASTERN NEW HAVEN COUNTY 223

large view is most remarkable, to work out its destiny. There is, or was in the
days when the realization of the alien Hood first came upon the citizens of the
older stock, consideralile foreboding, publicly or privately expressed. But it
has not been lasting, still less has it been justified by exijerience. The many of
those who deem themselves the proper heirs of the land of New Haven have
stood aloof as much as might be. and their chief assistance to the situation has
been in hoping for the best. But there has been a minority that has wisely
directed the process of assimilation. The most important of these have been
the faithful teachers in the schools, especially some of the more far set'ing prin-
cipals who have served in the crucial districts in this period of change. They
have met the tide of foreign invasion, standing as rocks that direct its flow.
They have, to use a more adequate figure, taken the plastic clay and wisely
molded it.

It has been a slow process, bi;t it has been sure. Faithful work has won
the victory. Never were there humans more eager to learn than the youth of
the Old World, standing, as have those newly come to New Haven, in the light
of the opportunities of the New. They could not have done better than to
come to the sane, well organized, well officered and well equipped schools of
this city. Their teachers cannot be too highly praised, but on the other hand,
seldom have teachers had more thrilling inspiration. Never were brighter minds
than those of the youth who were cracking the Old AVorld shell, coming into
the wonderful educational light of such a community as the New Haven of
the opening twentieth century. The effect has been marvelous. The schools
have soundly, effectively trained these youth, and the training has reacted on
the parents. It is to the schools, fundamentally and first of all, that the credit
must be given for making over the elders and forming the minds of the children.

There were evening schools, too, for the older seekers of learning. They
were many, and of many races. New Haven found here a problem too great for
it at first. The evening schools of 1890 to 1900 were crude and comparatively
unorganized, but they did, with all their handicaps, a tremendously valuable
work. They taught our customs, language, wa.ys and laws. Gradually they
became better organized, though they could not have more faithful teachers
than those who served in the early days when this was settlement, missionary,
as much as educational work. The increase of opportunity has been steady, and
the effect increasingly apparent.

There has been along with this much wholly or partial settlement work
which was worthy of note. Some mention has previously been made in these
pages of the work of Saint Paul's and the Davenport branch of Center Church
in the Wooster Square district, where the Italians most do congi-egate. This
has been constant and consistent, and has borne its notable fruits. Welcome
Hall and other church missions have done their part. There has been real
settlement work at Lowell House, where lovers of humanity like Dr. Julia E.
Teele and Mr. and Mrs. Robert A. Crosby have lived in close touch with the
people in one of the most Congested regions of the city, and served as the leaders

224 A MODERN HISTORY OF NEW HAVEN

for an earnest and increasing group of learners of the blessed privilege of
heli)ing humanity by the bi-othcrly hand.

The direct work of the schools for the children came, as time went on, to
be supplemented by positive corauninity center work for which the school build-
ing's facilities were employed as agencies. It took time and persuasion to con-
vince the conservative taxpayers of New Haven that their expensive school
buildings were not serving them adequately if open no more than six or seven
hours for 200 days of the year, and that they had a still greater task to do.
They would not, for a long time, see their responsibility for the help of those
who had newly come, even their duty of self defense in aiding them to become
better citizens. But the realization came in time. The reluctant consent of
the Board of Education — reluctant not because of its own failure to see the
point, but because of fear of the criticism of undiscerning citizens — was secured
for the opening of the school buildings on certain evenings of the month for
neighborhood and parents' meetings, for entertainments which parents and chil-
dren might share together, for lectures and talks on subjects concerning the
welfare of the people. It was an extension of the work of the .schools, and it
has had its material and growing result.

Another effort, in whose promotion New Haven had a substantial share, was
the extension to New Haven of the influence of the "Guides to the United
States," written by John Foster Carr of New York. These were little pam-
phlets, published in the principal languages of the immigrant, whose purpose
was to tell the newcomer in the simplest terras and the friendliest way the
things he most needed for progress toward Americanism. They were easy,
practical guides to America, real helping hands. They were inspii-ed by idealism,
by real understanding of the heart of the seekers of freedom and opportunity, by
consecrated desire to help them, not to exploit them. New Haven had a .share
in these in a double way. It received the benefit which Mr. Carr's invaluable
books afforded to many of the people seeking this city from foreign lands ;
and as the Connecticut Daughters of the American Revolution in large mea.sure
financed the publication. New Haven, through a large number of its excellent
women, was actively engaged in direct benefit to thousands of immigrants
who went to other points. This guide-book has now been issued in five or six
principal languages, and has done an incalculable amount of good in the forma-
tion of worthy AiTierican citizenship.

New Haven has, however, been only a sharer in the contributions to new
America which has come in through the Ellis Island gates. Every town in the
eastern side of the county has had its melting pot, too, in some eases more
taxed than New Haven's. Detailed census figures are available only for the
larger towns, but these make a significant showing. Meriden, with its 32,066
people in 1910, had 27 per cent, or 8,704 of native born to 23,217 of foreign
born or foreign parentage. These were mostly German, Austrian, Irish and
English, with Italy a good fifth. Wallingford, just below, had 7.367 of foreign
origin to 3,758 natives. Orange, which includes "West Haven, and is in effect a

AND EASTERN NEW HAVEN COUNTY 225

suburb of New Haven, had in all 11,272 people in 1910 ; its growth has been very
rapid since, and it may have twice as many now. It is more in the pos-
session of the native sons than is New Haven, however, having slightily more
than half its people native white of native parents. Branford's preponderance
of newcomers has been marked for years, for out of a population of 6,047 in
1910, it has 4,025 either foreign bom or native bom of foreign parents.

So it runs through all the smaller towns. Guilford, iladison. North Bran-
ford and all the rest have been reached by the ramifying tide. The old farms
have passed and are passing out of the hands of the old New England farmers,
whose boys have, in many cases, moved to the tempting city and left them, fain
to give up the unhelped struggle with the land. Thrifty, hard-working sons
of the Old World have come in, have reclaimed the run-down farms, have
repaired the falling or abandoned buildings. But there are whole neighbor-
hoods where not a farmer of the old stock remains. It is a melancholy or a
cheering change, according to the eyes with which one views it.

All in all, this radical change which the population of New Haven and east-
ern New Haven County has undergone fails to disappoint the close observer.
A dwindling native population in these communities has surprisingly held its
own. To its honor be it said that, with few and unimportant exceptions, it
has been able to impress its spirit on those who have come, to fraternize with
them, to make them New Englanders. Something in the "rock-ribbed granite
hills" has entered into the blood of those who have come. They have seen of
the spirit of New England and become filled with it. The melting pot haa
done its work well, and those refined by its fire are content. New England
is still New England, the same, yet changed, and not for the worse, in these
cities and towns. Here as nowhere else in America is revealed that wonder of
the New World alchemy, which brings forth as gold tried in the fire the varied
metal which comes beneath its influence.

CHAPTER XXIV
MAKERS OF MODERN NEW HAVEN

IN GENERAL PUBLIC SERVICE— MEN OF THE CHURCHES— LEADERS IN EDUCATION

COURTS AND LAWYERS — MEDICINE AND SOME OF THE PHYSICIANS — LEADERS IN
GOVERNMENT AND POLITICS — BANKS AND BANKERS NEWSPAPERS AND PRINT-
ERS MANUFACTURERS, MERCHANTS, ENGINEERS AND OTHERS

God made the country out of whic-h New Haven, the city, was carved. Men
— and women — have made the town, the modern community wliieh now we view.
To enumerate the makers would be almost an endless task. To tell the half of
their work would be still nearer the impossible. No man may know who have
deserved the more prominent mention. So one presumes not a little in selecting
a few on whom the light has now and then flashed in such a way as to make it
seem that they might be considered leaders in the community that is today.

In large measure the story of some has been told in the chapters that have
preceded, and more of it will come in the chapters to follow. The test applied
is the test of service in distinguished degree. Thousands of others served as
well, even made possible the cumulative service of these men who are here
called the makers of modern New Haven. The work of woman is in itself so
important as to require a separate chapter. No attempt is made here to be bio-
graphical. This is only an attempt to give a glimpse of now and then a man as
he is assigned to his place in the structure of the community.

But for one man, it would be rash to select New Haven's foremost citizen.
But so few are the American towns who can claim in their citizenship an
ex-president of the United States that with them there can be no question.
Hon. William Howard Taft deliberately and advisedly chose New Haven for his
place of residence when he retired from the presidency in 1913, and has ever
since been an interested, loyal citizen of the town, participating, as far as so
busy a man can do, in all its activities. In public work through the Chamber
of Commerce, through Yale, through other agencies, he has contributed more
materially than one may reckon to the advancement of this city. And he has
always been an inspiration to the observing among his fellows. New Haven, as
does the nation, knows his worth.

Reckoned, in his specialty of patent law, first in his city and among the
foremost in his state, George Dudley Seymour is even better known in New
Haven for other things. Pew men have better deserved the designation "prac-

226

KATHAX HALE STATUE ON \ALE I X]\'i:KsnV CAMPUS, XEW HAVEN

AND EASTERN NEW HAVEN COUNTY 227

tieal idealist." He has found time, apart from a very exacting practice, to
contribute in more ways than any but his closest associates know to the welfare
of his city. He would make it better in architecture, in plan of public places
and streets, in symmetry and beauty. He would inspire in its citizens regard
for true values, respect for noble traditions, true patriotism and exalted com-
mon sense. He has not merely sought a "city beautiful." He has striven
after a city practical, noble, healthful, prosperous in the highest sense. He
has promoted ideal architecture; he has also backed a manufacturers' exhibit.
When some Tale men wanted to place on the Tale campus a Nathan Hale statue
of the common melodramatic type, he effectually opposed them with a plea for
"the familiar Hale." And he prevailed. Then, to prove his appreciation, he
at his own cost purchased the Hale birthplace in Coventry, and held it as a
public memorial. The rest of the deeds he has done are not written. Most of
them never will be. But in almost every truly valuable work done in New Haven
in the past decade and more the searcher would find his hand.

If the man who guides the feet of the stranger, who crystallizes local his-
tory while it is nebulous, who makes practical in the intensest' ways the
art preservative is a noble server of the public good, then Wilson H. Lee's
contribution to New Haven must be multiplied by sixty-five, for he makes direc-
tories for that many towns. He is proud that he is a printer, and would
readily claim that as his vocation. But he is so good a farmer that he is a
valued member of the State Board of Agriculture, and so good a dairyman that
he has been president of the Connecticut Dairymen's Association. It's a way
he has of doing everything he does in the best way, just as he does his patriotism
and his public service. A few years ago he was president of the Connecticut
Society of Sons of the American Revolution. His standing in the directory
world is indicated by his former presidency of the American Association of
Directory Publishers, and all these things indicate his standing in New Haven,
and his worth to the community.

Isaac M. Ullman would set himself down as a manufacturer, but though
he is successful there, that seems the least conspicuous of his local activities. In
the state as well as the city he is known for his participation in polities. He
admits that. He knows what many citizens seem not to know, that the machinery
of government will not run itself. He likes to participate in the management.
It may be said of him without reproach that he has made mayors of New Haven,
and has made at least one governor of Connecticut. He has always worked as
•sincerely for the advancement of New Haven as he has in his terms as president
of the Chamber of Commerce. He has set others at work, and led the way.
When there is something to be done, from managing a city political campaign
to managing a state Red Cross campaign. Colonel Ullman is the man who
can do it.

Mr. Ullman has cordially given to Charles E. Julin, whose prominence in
New Haven is largely due to his efficient work as secretary of the Chamber
of Commerce, much of the praise for .success credited to himself. Certain it

228

A MODERN HISTORY OF NEW HAVEN

that Mr. Juliu's cousistent, inteUigent, industrious effort has told tremen-
dously for the good of the city. He is a lawyer by education, but substantially
all his practice is in the Chamber of Commerce office.

William S. Pardee has high standing among the lawyers of New Haven as
an authority on the city charter, and his service for the general public welfare,
which in recent years has withdrawn him largely from private practice, deserves
for him a high place. His contributions to local and state government, his
constant thought of how he may improve the community he loves so well, his
cordial good fellowship at every time— these and many other qualities make
him to those who know him well one of the valued citizens of New Haven.

For a generation, extending well toward the present time, Max Adler was
a powerful factor in the better life of New Haven. A philanthropist in the
highest sense, he constantly gave of himself as well as his money for every
good cause. His fine loyalty to the faith of Israel but broadened liim and
made him the friend of every faith that was sincere. Educational, industrial,
financial, administrative and social circles as well had felt the touch of his
brotherhood, the fineness of his spirit and the wisdom of his counsel, and all
alike miss him yet.

A born newspaper man, Lewis S. Welch, throwing himself with all his
heart into the public service of New Haven, has in later years come to an even
broader position. His work on Hartford and New Haven newspapers after his
graduation from Yale gave him a sense of public opportunity, and his contri-
bution to journalism in the conduct of the Yale Alumni Weekly through some
of its trying years gave him a strong hold on the gratitude of Yale graduates.
But New Haven knows him in these days as a man ever ready to give his best
for the city, through charter or Chamber of Commerce or Civic Federation
committee or any other agency that offers.

New Haven may be presuming to claim Frederick J. Kiugsbury, the younger,
as a participant in its community work, for his birth and business interests are
elsewhere. But because of his residence he has so heartily entered into some
of the activities of the city that his a.ssociation seems verv close. Especially
through the Young Men's Christian Association and the Civic Federation he has
given public service of great value.

In 1908 there appeared a remarkable book by a man bom only thirty-two
years earlier in New Haven. "A Mind That Found Itself," by Clifford W.
Beers, has in the short time since proved an epoch-making work. It has proved
so because it has been followed up by the inspired effort of its author, who
believed and still believes in the purpose and conclusion of his book, that "what
the insane most need is a friend. ' ' To tell in brief the outcome of his experience
and his writing is to say that, following the foundation of the Connecticut
Society for Mental Hygiene in 1908 and the organizing of the National Com-
mittee for Mental Hygiene the year after, there have come into being societies
on the Connecticut model in Illinois, New York, Massachusetts, Maryland, Penn-
sylvania, North Carolina, District of Columbia, Alabama, Louisiana, California,

AND EASTERN NEW HAVEN COUNTY 229

Rhode Island, Ohio, Tennessee, Missouri, Indiana, Iowa, Virginia and the City
of Dayton, with all their wondrous influence for the improvement of the con-
dition of the insane, and the prevention of mental disease.

From the university standpoint, Professor William B. Bailey 's place is with
the educators. But one who knows of the work which for the past four or
five years he has done as director of the Organized Charities is bound to claim
him for the city. His identification with this community had for several years
before that been very close in many ways, such as through the Foote Boys'
Club, Lowell House, the Civic Federation and the Connecticut Society for
Mental Hygiene. An eminent and able educator, a statistician of note, he has
proved himself above all a wise and effectual humanitarian, an4 it is in no
merely sentimental sense that multitudes rise up to call him blessed.

An instance of a lawyer who has broadened beyond his profession, without
■disparaging that, is James T. Moran. He has brought fame to the city now
as president of the Southern New England Telephone Company, but in the years
before, as member of the Board of Education, as banker, business man and faith-
ful churchman, he has consistently promoted the best causes in New Haven. A
man of brilliant mental and executive ability, he has been a fairly dynamic
force in New Haven's progress.

New Haven was and is conservative, but when a man comes bearing the
light of brotherhood, it welcomes him with open arms. So it is that though his
coming to the city was comparatively res-ent, Allen B. Lincoln already is one of
the best known and respected of its citizens. The good works into which he has
entered with all his zeal are almost too numerous to mention, but among them,
of course, are the Civic Federation and the Chamber of Commerce. As business
manager of the annual campaigns of the Mothers' Aid Society, as occasional
organizer of other campaigns of the sort, liis aid has repeatedly been sought, and
never in vain. His participation in the Davenport settlement work has already
been mentioned.

For two-thirds of a century this city has known the sterling citizen whom
ever\-body lovingly calls General Greeley, now a veteran in years as well as of
war. Successful in business as investor and banker, he has devoted his wealth
without stint to every appeal, and has given his own effort unsparingly besides.
]\Iodcstly avoiding ]3rominenee, he has had many important offices of civics and
charity pressed upon him, and has earnestly accepted them.

The term "self made man" has been so overworked that it has come to have
a little touch of opprobrium. Yet if is proper to apply it to Dennis A. Blakeslee,
for he has made other things than himself, and made them well. He has made
his firm the leading contracting concern in the city, and one of the leaders in
the county. There is hardly a town in the state or a trunk line highway that
does not show his firm's work, while railroads, steam and electric, as well as
many other considerable works in this and other states show its sterling mark.
Their two most ambitious works of recent years are the "railroad cut" in New
Haven, a fine example of engineering and concrete construction, and a section

230 A MODERN HISTORY OF NEW HAVEN

at Kitehewan, near Ossiuing, of the Catskills-to-Manhattau aqueduct, where
they competed with the best engineers of New York and other states, and showed
their superiority. Mr. Blate.slee, in addition to attending to his business, has
found time to serve his town, his county and his state as representative, senator
and lieutenant governor.

Though coming in recent years to be a leader in a city where real estate
dealers abound, Frederick M. Ward has still found time for much public work,
and New Haven owes much for its advancement in good directions to him. A
man of high ideals, sane and practical in following them, he is a strength to more
good causes than most of his neighbors know.

The city^here he has his headquarters, and which has his first attention,
gets only a part of the benefit of the large contribution to public enjoyment of
Sylvester Z. Poll. In twenty years or so he has made a wonderful record. Start-
ing in a minor way in New Haven with a small amusement house, he has gone
on until he ha.s established a chain of theaters of varying types in eight cities.
In New Haven he has three, the old Hyperion being the last to come into his
hands. He has also one or more theaters in Bridgeport, Meriden, Hartford,
Springfield, Worcester, Seranton and Wilkes-Barre. Pa.

In New Haven, city of churches, the influence of the gospel preacher as a
maker and moulder is as great now, in a different way, as ever since the pilgrim
days. The city has bad some men of marvelous power in the modern period.
Its day of long pastorates, as we have seen, is not wholly past, though in most
of the churches the present leaders are comers within a decade. Their leader-
ship is acknowledged, their aid sought, in many a wofk not a little out of
their lino.

In the coui-se of progress, denominational distinctions are often lost, and
especially the institution now called the Yale School of Religion has doft:'ed its
sectarian garb, and become recognized as a broad leader. In these days this is
not a little due to the strength and genius of the man who came to be head of
this school about 1912, Dean Charles R. Brown. He has been called one of the
ten great preachers of America. That is of less moment, however, than the fact
that he is a man of rare idealism and discernment, who wins men of all creeds
and ranks, and is beloved of all. However, his own church has men .strong out-
side of their denomination. Doctor ]\Iaurer admirably maintains the traditions
of Center. Rev. Robert C. Denison and Rev. Artemas J. Haynes have been a
great pair in the old North Church. Doctor Phillips was a power for twenty
years and more at the Church of the Redeemer, and had an unusual hold on all
the city. Rev. Roy M. Houghton has ably taken up his work. Rev. Frank R.
Luckey has for thirty years kept the faith at the Humphrey Street Church.
Rev. Harry R. Miles has ably followed the work of Doctor Leete in Dwight
Place Church and New Haven, as has Rev. Orville A. Petty followed Doctor

AND EASTERN NEW HAVEN COUNTY 231

McLane at Plymouth. Rev. Edward F. Goin does a noble service for his people
at Dixwell Avenue Church, and a broader work for the people of the city. Rev.
Harris E. Starr, ca.st of the (juinnipiac, and Rev. Clair F. Luther, west of West
River, with Rev. William C. Prentiss in the old Grand Avenue Church, make
up a groi;p of strong men.

The other churches have had, through men of faith and brotherhood, no less
an influence in this later period. The Episcopal churces have a gi-eat quartet
in Rev. Stewart Means at St. John's. Rev. William A. Beardsley at St. Thomas,
Rev. Charles 0. Scoville at Trinity and Rev. George L. Paine at St. Paul's.
Rev. Frederick Lent at the Fii-st Baptist is a man who commands great influence
throughout the city. There have been several recent changes at Calvary Bap-
tist, but they have not weakened the influence of this live, spiritual church, in
whose pulpit Rev. James McGee, following such men as Hoag, Munro and
Poteat, now wields an enviable power. The Catholic Church, through such vet-
eran pastors as Father Coyle at St. John's. Father Russell at St. Patrick '.s,
Father McGivney at St. Joseph's in Westville, Father McKeon at Sacred Heart
and Father Harty at St. Joseph's in the city, has been a mighty force of com-
munity blessing. From the Temple on Orange Street has radiated, in the past
twenty years, an influence for service and for good that has reached far beyond
the followers of the faith of Israel, through such teachers as Rabbi Levy and
Rabbi Mann. The I\Iethodist Church has covered the city, and through a long
list of consecrated men has worked for its upbuilding. Some among them, like
Doctor Dent and Mr. Laird at the First Church, Mr. Munson and Doctor Good-
enough at Trinity and Mr. Smith at East Pearl Street have entered largely into
New Haven's general life. Churches numerically smaller have had, through
men of good will, a part above proportion to their size. Rev. Theodore A.
Fischer of the LTniversalist has been found shoulder to shoulder with the work-
ers of New Haven in every task attempted, always a welcome comrade.
Mr. Timm of the German Lutheran Church was for many years a participant
in many public affairs, and long a valued member of the Library Board.
Rev. James Grant, though denied by ill health the privilege of having his own
church, has been a welcome preacher in every church, a .joy at every feast and
always an uplifting power. The city will never lose the good of the long service
of Rev. William D. Mos.sman as leader of the City ^Mission work and one of the
founders of the Organized Charities.

These men of the church are leaders now, as ever, in the universal war work.
The Congregational group especially shows .just now a notalile record. Six of
these ministers from New Haven and nearby are now in active sevice on the
war fronts. Rev. Orville A. Petty of Plymouth went out with the One Hundred
and Second as its chaplain. Doctor Maurer of Center, Jlr. Starr of Pilgrim,
Mr. Houghton of the Church of the Redeemer, Mr. Miles of Dwight Place and
Mr. Brown of West Haven are in the Young Men's Christian Association war
sei-vice, most of them in France. In the Episcopal Church, Rev. George L.
Paine has just resigned from St. Paul's to enter a similar service, and now :\Ir.
Laird, lately of the First Methodist, has joined the war service.

232 A MODERN HISTORY OF NEW HAVEN

The influence of the leaders in the Congi-egational churches made New Haven
the place of a national church gathering in 1915. This was the sixteenth National
Council, which brought to the city some thousands of delegates and guests from
all parts of the country and beyond. A capable commitee of ministers and lay-
men, headed by Rev. Oscar E. I\Iaurer, handled the arrangements, and were so
well supported by citizens in general that the visitors testified that no council
up to that time had been so satisfactorily entertained.

Ill

There is a long list of educators who have had more than a professional
influence on their community. The presidents of Yale have given their first
thought to that great institution, and that has been enough to take all their
attention. But also, with few exceptions, they have been active citizens of the
community. This has been especially so in the cases of Doctor Dwight and
Doctor Hadley, presidents in the recent period. Both were born in New Haven,
and their city has markedly felt the influence of each. Doctor Dwight, released
in 1899 from the duties of the presidency, never ceased to the time of his death
to have a keen interest in public affairs, and served the city in more ways
than most of his fellows knew. The burden of the presidency in the years
since would have been enough for an ordinary man, but Doctor Hadley, as is
well known, is in a way a superman. His public service and interest have been
national as well as local, and they have been gi-eat. Not far behind these has
been Rev. Anson Phelps Stokes, for many years secretary of the university,
who has thrown himself into the life of New Haven with the enthusiasm of a
native.

Many might also be mentioned among the teachers of the university who
have exerted a positive influence in the formation of the city, and contributed by
personal work to its progress. Foremost among them, no doubt, is Prof.
Henry "W. Parnam, in every way a live, valuable citizen. A man with very wide
affiliations and constant demands on his attention, he has never failed to respond
to every local appeal for his help, Prof. Irving Fisher, as busy a man in
many ways, has been as assiduous in serving New Haven. Prof. Charles
Foster Kent was the first president of the Civic Federation, and has participated
in many church and civic works. Dr. Russell H. Chittenden, head of the
scientific school, has been a loyal citizen in many ways, and the contribution
of Prof. L. P. Breckenridge of the same institution has been material.
Prof. Hiram Bingham has "mixed" well with the men of New Haven, always
ready to lend a hand, and George Parmly Day, treasurer of the university, has
participated in many good community works.

The contribution, direct and indirect, of Arthur B. Morrill to the welfare
of New Haven has been considerable. An educator of eminent rank, the head
of the Normal school, has been an inspiration and example of good citizenship
to old and young. Superintendent Frank H. Beede of the schools has never

AND EASTERN NEW HAVEN COUNTY 23:j

been a detaehed citizen, busy as be bas been, though his contribution through
the upbuilding of the schools has been all that the city could ask. In this
he has been ably assisted, of late years, by the associate superintendents, Claude
C. Russell, Junius C. Knowlton and John C. McCarthy. Nor should mention
be omitted of George T. Hewlett, since 1900 secretary of the Board of Educa-
tion, who has been identified with many a public work. Charles L. Kir&chner,
principal of the high school, Frank L. Glynn and Roljert 0. Beebe, successively
directors of the trade school, should also be mentioned. In business education
a leader who has aided the community in no small way is Nathan B. Stone of
the Stone Business College.

A community with a legal history based on such traditions as the record
of Roger Sherman and James Abram Hillhouse is competently maintaining its
standards in the modern time. For almost two centuries New Haven, jointly
with Hartford, administered the law for the state, and provided temples of .justice.
It later came to have the only school of law in the state, and from that, as well
as from the standing of its lawyers, it still retains its prestige as a leader of
the Connecticut bar. From the ranks of its lawyers have come three of the
four governors which the city has furnished in the past forty years. It has
always been well represented on the benches of state and nation, and in the
present period has had a chief justice of the State Supreme Court, Hon. Simeon
E. Baldwin. It now has a circuit judge in the United States District Court,
Hon. Henry Wade Rogers, called from his high place as dean of the Yale Law
School ; a United States commissioner, William A. Wright ; an associate judge
of the State Supreme Court of Errors. Hon. John K. Beach ; one judge of the
Superior Court who is a resident of the city, William L. Bennett, and another
who has his office in the city, James H. Webb.

New Haven, as the county seat, is now occupying its fifth courthouse since
the first primitive structure on the Green was built in 1717. That building
served until 1767, for the requirements of the courts were then very modest,
according to our standards. The next structure, standing on Temple Street,
midway between where Trinity and Center churches now stand, was bare, but it
served for almost fifty years. Then the courts moved into what New Haveners
of this generation have known as the old State House, on the Green west of the
churches. Their requirements outgrew it before a new courthouse could be
provided, and we find them using, from 1861 to 1871, spare room in the City
Hall. In that period the county took active steps to provide a new building,
and the result wa.s the brown stone edifice which still stands north of the City
Hall. This was completed in 1873, and was palatial for those times.

But soon after the new century came in, New Haven County, though in
the meantime it had provided a fine building in Waterbury where some of the
courts of the district were held, felt that it must have a new and adequate
courthouse at the county seat. A committee appointed by a meeting of the
county's senators and representatives at Hartford on February 20, 1907, found

234 A MODERN HISTORY OF NEW HAVEN

that the then existing county courthouses were not adequate, and submitted as
its report a vote of the Bar of New Haven County, resolving that it approved
the decision of the committee to recommend a new building. The committee and
the lawyers agreed on the northwest corner of Elm and Church streets as a
desirable site, and the latter appointed a committee consisting of John K. Beach,
Isaac Wolfe, Harry G. Day, Henry C. White and John H. Webb to act in con-
junction with the county committee.

The committee for the county, appointed June 27, 1907, consisted of
Hon. John Q. Tilson, speaker of the House ; John K. Beach of New Haven and
Senator Dennis A. Blakeslee and the county commissioners, who then were
Edward F. Thompson, Jacob D. Walter and James Geddes. About two years
later John K. Beach resigned, and Frank S. Bishop of New Haven was appointed
in his place. T'ae committee continued in charge of the work until the building
was completed, except that James F. Cloonan of Mei'iden succeeded Mr. Thomp-
son as county commissioner.

Tlie architects chosen were Allen & Williams of New Haven, and the plan
they submitted was similar in eft'ect to St. George's Hall in London. It was
in 1909 that the work was begun, with the Sperry & Treat Company of New
Haven as the general contractor. It was reported finished, furnished and ready
for occupancy on March 24, 1914, at a total cost of $1,324,869.35. It surpasses
any county building in the state, and is one of the finest in the New England
region. Standing at a prominent corner of the Green, it makes one of the
most distinguished features of the central group of architecture. Within it is
sul)stantial]y and luxui-iously a]>pointed, with ample provisions for all the county
courts and offices. Its distinguished mural paintings have been done, including
the decorating, by T. Gilbert White, and the sculpture, wiiich includes two
figures of heroic size before the building, by J. Massey Rhind.

In such a home meets a distinguished company of lawyers. Tlierc were
228 of them in New- Haven in 1917. The three governors whom they have
recently furnished are Hon. Henry B. Harrison, 1885-87 ; Hon. Luzon B. Morris,
1893-95 ; Hon. Simeon E. Baldwin, 1911-15. The last was the first governor to
be elected for a second term since the term was made two years in 1884. More
recently the bar of New Haven has provided a secretary of state, Hon. Frederick
L. Perry. In this period New Haven lawyers have provided two members of
Congress. Hon. James P. Pigott, in 1893-95, and Hon. John Q. Tilson, who was
memher-at-large from 1909 to 1913, was chosen from the Third district in 1914
and re-elected in 1916.

These are not the only ones who have been called to higher office. Hon. Bur-
ton Mansfield, justly honored in many circles of his fellow citizens, leader
among churchmen as w^ell as lawyers, was appointed insurance commissioner
of Connecticut by Governor Morris in 1893, and when Governor Baldwin wanted
the right man for the place he reappointed him in 1911. So admirably has
he filled the office that Governor Baldwin's Republican succes-sor continued him
in it. Besides that he holds numerous positions of trust, financial and indus-
trial, as well as legal. John Currier Gallagher, who succeeded Edward A.

AND EASTERN NEW HAVEN COUNTY 235

Anketell as clerk of the New Haven County Superior Court in 1907, and
remained in the position until his death in 1912, had heen assistant for years
before that, and was one of the honored members of the New Haven group.
Mr. Anketell, on his part, had been clerk of the courts of the county for
eighteen years before that, and stood high in his profession.

William K. Townsend, native of New Haven, long one of the most dis-
tinguished members of its legal group, was another who rose to the rank of a
federal judgeship, being appointed to the United States Circuit Court in 1892.
Henry G. Newton is another whose departure is so recent as to make his memory
very vivid. He was one of the most respected members of the New Haven bar
for over forty years, and at the time of his death had long been a referee in bank-
ruptcy. His place in many relations in New Haven was a very large one.
Charles Kleiner, for thirty-four years a member of the New Haven bar, has just
closed a remarkable term of eight years as corporation counsel, a pei-iod in which
he has abundantly justified the confidence of his fellow lawyers and citizens in
his sterling character, fine legal training and careful judgment. Livingston
W. Cleaveland, who though eminent in his profession, occupies an even higher
place in New Haven esteem, has held for several terms the probate judgeship,
and is prominent in many efforts for the common good. John P. Studley, for
three terms New Haven's mayor, roimded out his public career by a service as
judge of probate, and was succeeded by John L. Gilson, the present able and
popular holder of the office. Roceo Terardi, one of the able younger lawyers,
was for several years prosecutor in the police court.

New Haven has several law firms which are notable in their history, though
their individuals have been no less distinguished. One of the more prominent
of these is White Brothers, unique in the fact that four generations, from
Dyer White of the colonial days to Roger White, 2d, served the public as
conveyancers, sul>stantially on the same site. A younger firm by far, but as
distinguished in its way, is Clark, Hall & Peek, which has a statewide reputation
for skill and reliability in the searching of titles. One of the most prosperous
firms in these days is Stoddard, Goodhart & Stoddard, a group of strong men
whose ability covers a wide range. Bristol & White is a firm now including
some of the ablest members of the bar, John W. Bristol, Leonard 51. Daggett,
Henry C. White and Thomas Hooker, Jr. Watrous & Day is made up of
George D. Watrous, just regarded as one of the leaders of the bar, an attorney
of the highest ability, a professor in the Yale Law School and a citizen of
sterling worth ; and Harry G. Day, who divides his attention between eminent
service in his profession and the executive guidance of the New Haven Hospital.

A notable group includes men who have retired, others who have had their
eulogies written. Besides Judge Townsend and Judge Newton, already men-
tioned, there is Earliss P, Arvine, who rests from a useful life and service.
Henry T. Blake is still active, though not in legal practice. John W. Ailing,
after long service as president of the Telephone Company, has also somewhat
relaxed the strenuous life.

The list might greatly be extended. Seymour C. Loomis has a high standing

236 A MODERN HISTORY OF NEW HAVEN

in his profession, but iiuds time for mucli non-professional public work. Donald
A. Adams, though continuing his legal work as a teacher as well as a prac-
titioner, has carried the secretarial work of the Civic Federation for two years
past and done much other public service. Harry "W. Asher has an enviable
place in his profession. Bernard E. Lynch is trusted as a counselor and hon-
ored as a citizen. Matthew A. Reynolds, an attorney of high ability, has also
served the city as a public official, notably as a member of the Board of Fire
Commissioners. Eliot Watrous, in addition to a handsome private practice,
is often found engaged in unpaid public endeavor. George W. Crawford occu-
pies a high position among his fellows, and peculiarly and ably serves the
people of the colored race, to whom he always gives wise and reliable counsel.
A. McClellan Mathewson, in addition to his private practice, has rendered the
community a large service, in his time as police court judge and since, in work
for the boys of New Haven. For many years he headed the local council for
the Bov Scouts, and his interest in the rising generation is real and constructive.

In nothing has New Haven made greater advances in the recent period than
in the lienefits derived from the practice of medicine. It was never backward
in that respect, for in it for generations some of the ablest of American
physicians have labored. But it was unfortunately true that, in the period
just before the beginning of this century, the tide of wealth that was aiding
the science of medicine through the schools was running stronger in almost
every direction than toward Yale. And on Yale Medical School New Haven
depended in great measure for its medical inspiration.

The "beloved physicians" — and New Haven has had many of them — ^worked
on in zeal and faith. They, have kept New Haven in the front rank. And in
this time the fruit of their works appears. Friends with wealth and the love
and pride of Yale have come to the rescue of its medical school. They are
making it one of the foremost in the country, and greater things are ahead for
it. This reacts in a direct way on New Haven. For there has been materially
strengthened an alliance which has existed from the beginning between Yale
Medical School and the New Haven Hospital. The leading hospital in the city,
recently greatly enlarged in its space and equipment, is to have more than
ever the service of Yale — the new Yale. The New Haven Dispensary, which has
for forty-six years existed to serve at the lowest cost those who most need
medical advice and assistance, is also to have its scope and service increased.
The general medical advance has for some years reacted on the New Haven
public health service, which has been reformed on modern standards.

All this has been the work of faithful men who have industrioiisly applied
their learning. Most of them have been identified with the trio, Yale, the
hospital and New Haven. Some have branched off from this alliance to form
other hospitals, and sorely New Haven has needed them. At one time, and that
rather recently, this city was far behind others of its size in its hospital

XKW HAVKN HdSPITAL. XKW HA\KX

THK (iRADUATKS rlAH. -NKW IIA\ l-A

AND EASTERN NEW HAVEN COUNTY 237

accommodations, and still its growth keeps up the pressure. To meet the need
physicians of the homeopathic school founded Grace Hospital some twenty-two
years ago, and though never oversupplied with funds, it has done an excellent
work. A few years later the private institution known as Elm City Hospital,
of wliirh Dr. Clarence E. Skinner was the inspiration, was started in a build-
ing erected for its purpose at the southern end of Park street, and continues,
under changed management, its able service. St. Raphael's Hospital, under the
auspices of the Catholic Church, was founded soon after 1900, and has so well
served the people that those who wish good treatment and care, seek it without
paying attention to the limitations of religious creed.

Of the physicians of New Haven in these days of the new development of
Yale, it is natural that the dean of that school should be regarded as the leader.
Dr. George Blumer has that position by right of eminent attainment, and with-
out .jealousy. There are older physicians, of whom most persons would mention
first Dr. William H. Carmalt, okl in practice, general and special, old also in
the confidence, respect and affection of his fellow citizens. Dr. William C.
Welch, of a long line of distinguished physicians, eminent in his profession,
rarely fine in his personal character, devoted as are few men to the welfare
of his fellows, true friend as well as reliable healer, is rounding out a long
service for the people who love him. Dr. B. Austin Cheney, veteran of the war,
sterling practitioner of the old school, a man -whom all New Haven honors for
his personal as well as his profe.ssional qualities, completes a remarkable trio.

A group of those who have finished their work is too distinguished to receive
less regard. "Old Doctor Sanford" was not so many years ago one of the true
type of "beloved physicians," whose presence did good like a medicine. His
work is earrried on by Dr. Leonard C. Sanford, scholar, lover of nature, physi-
cian of eminent attainments. New Haven still remembers with gratitude and
tears Dr. Otto G. Ramsey, brilliant surgeon, sacrifice to the demand of the people
which his skill created. A multitude of those whom he served for the pure love
of humanity still grieves at the untimely ending of the work of Dr. AVilliam J.
Sheehan. Dr. Jay W. Seaver, though his work was mo.stly with the university
in an official capacity, was long a resident of New Haven, and many friends
recall his work with tenderest memories.

Two who stand out as surgeons maintain ably the high standard set by that
department of healing. Dr. William P. Yerdi has demonstrated a skill which
has spread his fame far beyond the bounds of his connnunity. Dr. William P.
Lang, younger, with already an enviable reputation for eai-eful, skillful work,
is coming to fill a large place in the needs of New Haven, and to be demanded
in many other communities. There is a group of notable specialists, from whom,
in incomplete justice, may be selected Dr. Oliver T. Osborne, Dr. William C.
Wurtemburg, Dr. Henry W. Ring, Dr. John E. Lane and Dr. Allen R.
Diefendorf.

Dr. Stephen J. Maher, also a specialist, has made a place for himself of int<>r-
national as well as state and local eminence by his study of tuberculosis. This
has justly placed him at the head of the state commission, in which position he

238 A MODERN HISTORY OF NEW HAVEN

is doing a work for the healing of humanity and the lengthening of life which
this generation will inadequately appreciate. Dr. Charles J. Bartlett, whose
work at present is largely with the Medical School, has in recent times served
New Haven in other highly important ways. His work as president for several
years of the Civic Federation has already been mentioned. His service for New
Haven's health in connection with the health department covered several years,
and its fruits are abundant. In this couneetiou it should be said that, though
his name appears less prominently in the reports, the contribution of Dr. C.-E.
A. Winslow of the University to the same cause is not a small one. And Prof.
Yandell Henderson, through the Medical School and through his frequent pub-
lic service in such causes as charter revision, is a citizen not to be overlooked.

Dr. Nicola Mariani is a physician whose appeal is naturally to the Italian
people, and who delights to serve them. But not a few iu New Haven know
him as a gentleman of the rarest breeding, a man of high public spirit, as well
as a physician of skill. Dr. Isaac N. Porter is recognized iu the fraternity as
of eminent ability, and though his practice is mostly wnth his own people, there
are not a few of all races who, seeking healing, are fain to disregard the
color line.

New Haven had 218 physicians in 1917. Each has his place, and many who
regard him as the best in the city. But no list would be complete without such
names as those of Dr. C. Purdy Lindsley. Dr. William P. Baldwin, Dr. Arthur
N. Ailing, Dr. Leonard W. Bacon, Dr. Henry P. Sage, Dr. E. Reed Whittemore,
■ Dr. Gustavus Eliot, Dr. Edwin C. il. Hall, Dr. Burdette S. Adams and Dr. E.
Herman Arnold, the last further distinguished by his conduct of the New Haven
Normal School of Gymnastics.

In many directions have citizens of New Haven lu'ought honor as well as
service to their city. The shortest path to fame, oftentimes, is by way of poli-
ties. There already has been some mention of the contributions which the legal
profession has made to politics and government. Its three governors in two
decades do not, however, exhaust New Haven's list. The business ranks con-
tributed one governor in Rollin S. Woodruff. Prom 1907 to 1909 he was the
state's chief executive, one of the most independent, upright and forceful gov-
ernors of the past two decades. Previous to that time he was lieutenant gov-
ernor for a term, and still earlier he was state senator. In New Haven he ha-s
been president of the Chamber of Commerce, and one of the city's foremost
business men.

The most distinguished New Haven tigure in national politics in this period
was doubtless Hon. Nehemiah D. Sperry, now resting from his labor. His
work in New Haven as a builder, public officer and postmaster belongs to an
earlier period, but from 1895 till 1909 he was congressman from the Second dis-
trict, and performed at Washington the crowning service of a useful career.
New Haven was not the birthplace of Hon. John Q. Tilson, who in a way has

(t)XXKCTKLT SAVIX(;S BANK. Xi:\V HA\ KN

AND EASTERN NEW HAVEN COUNTY 239

come into his place, but he. aftei- being member of the State Legislature and
speaker, is in this time of war performing a notable service as congressman from
the New Haven district.

A sterling citizen, whose longest work in New Haven has been as a manufac-
turer, occupied the mayor's chair in 1897-99. The biographical works of the
time are silent about Frederick B. Farnsworth, because he wishes them to be.
It is liis way. He didn't please the politicians when he was mayor, which means
that he pleased the people. He has always lived a plain, rugged, public serving
life. He has .succeeded in his business, and is now able to sit back and watch
for opportunities to do good. His eyesight is keen, and he seldom misses one.
That the general public so seldom knows of it is. perhaps, a tribute to his dis-
creet ability.

There was another mayor for a brief time wiio deserves better than per-
functory mention. When tragedy removed ]\Iayor Rice from his place in 1916,
Samuel Campner was president of the Board of Aldermen. Automatically
called to the mayor's chair, aft.erward confirmed in the office by legislative act,
he performed a difficult task with a fidelity, a modesty and an ability that
earned for him the enduring gratitude of the discerning, though they were too
few to re-elect him.

New Haven had, in the sc<^ou(l decade of the twentieth century, a demonstra-
tion of the possibilities of citizenship whicli was at once pathetic and inspiring,
an example of public service which was both thrilling and tragic. New Haven
is a democratic city, but the office of mayor has usually gone to some man of
well recognized prominence, either in public affaii's or in politics. When Frank
J. Rice was named for the office in 1909. he was knuwn mostly as the popular
president of the Young lien's Republican Club, a manager of some large cen-
tral properties for a prominent real estate owner, a former member for several
terms of the Board of Councilmen.

He came to the chair of mayor a plain, simple, sincere citizen, with the desire
to serve his city uppermost in his mind. He made no promises except the com-
prehensive one to do his best. He did, however, outline a few of his plans. One
of them was to give New Haven some better sidewalks, and that, though one of
the least of his achievements, is characteristic of his administration of city
affairs. He found the sidewalks of ancient and billowy brick, of cracked and
crumbling asphalt, of unfinished gravel. In less than six years he had, against
indifference, prejudice and selfish opposition, given New Haven more than two
hundred miles of modern concrete sidewalk, and accomplished this simply by
keeping at it.

For almost seven years Frank J. Rice gave of his best to serve New Haven.
It should have been eight full years, but he wore out before the end of his time.
In the truest, highest sense he spared not himself. He took his office and his
opportunities seriously — too seriously— perhaps. He was never satisfied unless
a problem was solved in the best possible way, unless the veiw best appointment
was made, unless he could give his most intense attention to every subject. He
responded to every call the people made upon him. He grew into the heart of

240 A MODERN HISTORY OF NEW HAVEN

the people. They re-elected him in 1911 by a plurality of 2,029. He gave them
another term of unselfish service. In 1913, a definitely democratic year, he was
again elected, by a plurality of 1.201. In 1915 the city broke all records by
re-electing a mayor to a fourth term, and the mayor wa.s Frank J. Rice, this
time by a plurality of 2,013.

Bv the time New Haven had really come to know and appreciate Mayor Rice
it lost him. Too late his friends found they had been asking too much of him.
Too late his political critics hushed their clamor when they found they had
worried his sensitive spirit to the breaking point. Jilidway in the first year of
his fourth term he broke under the strain, and though for several months he
made a brave elfort to rally, he came back no more to the desk in City Hall where
he had so faithfully done the greatest of his life's work, and on January 18,
1917, his brave spirit rose to the land of his eternal ideals.

It was seven days later, in the course of an address before an association of
Yale alumni in another state, that President Hadley went out of his way to,
pay to Mayor Rice what, taken in its settings, must be considered a remarkable
tribute. He was speaking on the ideals of public service which Yale teaches,
and had mentioned the union of New Haven and Yale in the gi-eat anniversary
Pageant of the previous fall, when he said:

"The mayor of New Haven did not participate in this celebration. He had
done much to help in the earlj' stages, but at the time when it came he was on
his death bed — dying in office after having honorably served the city for several
terms. He was not a Yale man, but with each successive year of his ofSce he under-
stood Yale better and worked more actively with us. \Vith the announcement of
his death came a message from the city asking if the funeral might be held in Yale
university. On Sunday last thirty thousand citizens of New Haven, of every
nationality, lined the streets to see the body of the chief magistrate borne from
the City Hall to Woolsey Hall, and then to its last resting place. Thus was
celebrated the last scene in the drama w-hich commemorates the coming of Yale
to New Haven. The Pageant had a worthier epilogue than human hand could
have written."

VII

There were in New Haven at the beginning of 1900 ten banking institutions,
the outgrowth of a single bank started in 1795.* There are as many now, of the
same class, but their arrangement is somewhat different. Then eight of these
were national banks, centrally located, of the familiar sort. Now there are only
five national banks. Of the survivors, one is a combination of three banks and
another of two. To make up the number, there are a state bank and four trust
companies, one of which is a combination of two.

In 1899 the ten banks had a combined capital of $4,014,800, and surplus and
profits of $1,922,913. Now the ten institutions have capital amounting to

* The banking data are necessarily of 1917.

FIRST NATIONAL BANK, M;\\ ilA\ I;\

THE UNION AND NEW H.WEN TRUST UU-MPANV, .NEW HA\ EN

AND EASTERN NEW HAVEN COUNTY 241

$4J75,000, and surplus and profits of $4,457,392. The oldest and now the largest
is the New Haven National, combination of the old New Haven National, the New
Haven County National and the City banks, with capital of $1,200,000 and an
equal surplus. Its president is Ezekiel G. Stoddard. The present First National
is an amalgamation of that bank with the Yale National, effected in 1917. It
has a capital of a million dollars, and surplus of $650,000. Thoma.s Hooker,
of the old Hooker family, one of the leaders in New Haven's banking develop-
ment, is president. The bank next in strength is the Second National, which
occupies the finest banking and ofifiee building in the city. It has a capital of
$750,000 and a surplus of $700,000. Samuel Hemingway, another of the fore-
most bankers of the city, is its president. The Merchants National Bank, now
well established in the old Ford Building at the corner of Chapel and State
streets, which it has made into a modern banking house, has capital of $350,000
and a .surplus of $250,000. Its president is Harry V. Whipple. The National
Tradesmen's Bank, of which George Jl. Gunn. of ]Milford, is president, has a
fine banking house on Orange Street, capital of $300,000 and a surplus of
$400,000. The single state bank is the Mechanics, a strong and growing insti-
tution, which in 1910 completed one of the fine bank buildings of the city, on
Church Street. It has a capital of $300,000. surplus and profits of $458,709,
and William H. Douglass is chairman and vice pi-esident. The active president
is Frank B. Frisbie.

The old Union Trust Company was the pioneer of that sort of institution in
New Haven, and for some time held the field alone. Early in the nineteen
hundreds the New Haven Trust Company was formed, and in 1909 completed
a fine banking house on Church Street; Within two year.s after that it formed
a combination with the older institution, and is now the Union and New Haven
Trust Company, of which Eli Whitney is president. It has capital of $650,000,
and surplus and profits of $663,429. The People's Bank & Trust Company,
formed soon after this union, aims to be a popular institution, and does an
excellent service. It has capital of $50,000, and surplus and profits of $132,077.
Its president is Joseph E. Hubiuger.

The other trust companies are the outgrowth of the banking needs of ex-
panding New Haven, and account as well for the consolidation of some of the
central banks. Tlie Broadway Bank & Trust Company was founded in 1913
to serve the business men of the western and northern parts of the city. It has
capital of $100,000, and John B. Kennedy is its president. William M. Parsons,
who about the time of its founding retired from the Chamberlain Furniture and
Mantel Company, is its secretary and treasurer. The other trust institution
is the American Bank & Trust Company, founded a year or two later to
serve business Fair Haven. It has capital of $75,000 and a surplus of $3,177.
Its president is Myi-on R. Dunham.

There are three savings banks, all of them of maturity and standing. The
oldest is the Connecticut, but the strongest is the New Haven, while the National
makes a substantial third. Nineteen years ago they had combined deposits of

242 A MODERN HISTORY OF NEW HAVEN

$18,278,458. Last year the combined deposits of these three were $44,391,254. The
trust companies, with the exception of the first, have savings departments, and
the combined deposits of the six banks are $45,540,726. The New Haven has
$21,062,000, and its president is Lewis H. English. The Connecticut Bank has
$18,644,926; its president is Burton Mansfield. The National has $4,684,328.
The three trust companies together have savings deposits of $1,149,472.

About 1914 there was founded in New Haven a bank on the Morris plan,
backed by some of the soundest and ablest business men. It is a popular loan
institution, but an investment bank as well, and its management and prosperity
have demonstrated that it fills a needed place in New Haven finance. It has
a capital of $100,000. John T. Manson is its president, and Judson D. Terrill
its secretary and manager.

New Haven has never been an insurance center, but it has been represented
in that business since its early years. The Security (fire) Insurance Company
has had nearly a half century of confidence and prosperity, and now has a
capital of $1,000,000. with a surplus of $836,745. Its president is John "W.
Ailing.

New Haven's Building and Loan Association is a conservatively managed and
prosperous institution, with assets of $359,727. Its president is F. L. Trowbridge.

The oldest of the public service institutions is the New Haven Gas Company,
founded in 1847. It now lights and heats, in addition to New Haven, the
towns of Branford, p]ast Haven, North Haven, West Haven, Hamden. Orange
and Milford, including all the neighboring shore resoi'ts, a total population
of more than 185,000. It has an authorized capital of $10,000,000, and its
outstanding capital is half of that. Its president is Charles H. Nettleton, a
re.sident of Derby, but aside from him its directorate is composed of New Haven
men. George D. Watrous being vice president.

The New Haven Water Company was incorporated in 1849, by New Haven
men, to serve the city with water. It has been conducted so honestly and ably
that it stands for all the country as one of the best arguments against the public
ownership of utilities of this sort. Eli Whitney is its president and treasurer,
and has for many years been in large measure its genius, though the company
owes much of its standing to the able management of David Daggett, who was
its secretary for many years previous to his death in 1916. From eight great
reservoirs, holding in the aggregate three billions of gallons of water, the com-
pany serves now the needs of New Haven, East Haven, Hamden, Branford,
Milford, We.st Haven and some contiguous territory. Its high pressure service
is from the pumping stations near Whitney and Saltonstall lakes, from which
the higher ground in its territory is supplied. The other service reservoirs
feed by the gravity system, but some of the largest are storage reservoirs. In
addition to the two lakes mentioned, water comes from Wintergreen and Maltby

-XATIOXAL SAMMiS liAXK. XKW ILWEN

MKCHAXICS BANK. XKW HA\'EN

AND EASTERN NEW HAVEN COUNTY 243

lakes, from Fair Haven, and the three reservoirs in Woodbridge, Sperry, Daw-
son, and newst of all, Lake Watrous, partly in Woodbridge and partly in
Bethany. The company's authorized capital is $5,000,000.

The United Illnminating Company, a utility of comparatively recent origin,
is a consolidation of companies in New Haven and Bridgeport, and chiefly serves
these two cities and the towns between, though it now reaches in all directions
from the cities. It has a capital of $3,000,000, and James English of New Haven
is president.

In the center of a great railroad system. New Haven is greatly influenced by
the railroad and the men who make it. Two of the constructive presidents of
the road in the modern period have been Charles S. Mellen, who had his residence
here, and Howard Elliott, who though too Imsy in his brief term to spend much
time in New Haven, proved a good citizen. Many other prominent officials of
the road have lived in the city, and participated in its activities. Two who
have especially .joined in its life have been Vice President Edward G. Buckland
and Lucius S. Storrs, president of the Connecticut Company.

The old-time tavern long ago has disappeared, but the modern hotel which
has come in its place has much to do with the making of a community. New
Haven, in the pa.st ten years, has seen two of its old hotel landmarks go, one
the "Tontine," which stood at the corner of Church and Court streets, razed to
make room for the new postoffice, and the other the "New Haven House" of
more than a generation. The latter is replaced by New Haven's superior mod-
ern hotel, the Taft, eri'cted in 1911, and securing its name from otn-ious sources.
Louis E. Stoddard had as much as any New Havener to do with its financing
and erection, but ilerry & Boomer, a well known hotel management firm, has
contributed materially to the reputation it has as one of the best hotels in New
England.

At the gates of the new railroad station that is to be the Gardes several
years ago reconstructed the old hotel which William H. Garde made famous in
1896 and the years following, and his .son. Walter S. Garde, is conducting there
now one of the best appointed and managed hotels in the state.

VIII

New Haven has had newspapers ever since 1755, when a publication whose
name and substance seems to have been lost was established. It w^as so good as
to die at the age of nine. Only two years later, in 1766, a small newspaper
with the large name of the Connecticut Journal and New Haven Post Boy was
established. That, by evolution to the Journal and Courier and the Journal-
Courier, is today edited by Colonel Norris G. Osborn. The Courier, as New
Haven calls it. has since 1880 been published by John B. Carrington and the
Carrington Pulilishing Company, though the coming of Colonel Osborn in 1907
brought considerable new- capital into the concern, and gave the paper a new
spirit and new life.

244 A MODERN HISTORY OF NEW HAVEN

The New Haven Register was founded by Joseph Barber in 1812, and for
more than half a century was known throughout New Haven county and the state
as a staunch organ of the Democratic party. The party left it in 1896 to follow
after Bryan, and later, under a changed ownership, it became independently
Republican. It became a daily in 1842. Not far from that time it passed into
the hands of Minott A. Osborn, who made it one of the leading newspapers
of Connecticut. It remained in the hands of him and his son until 1895, when
a stock company was formed which purchased the family's interests. Colonel
Norris G. Osborn remained as its editor until 1907, when he went to the Journal-
Courier.

The New Haven Palladium was born in 1828, a Whig in politics, a Repub-
lican when that party was formed. It departed this life in 1911, leaving many
friends to mourn it. Between those years it had an honorable and valuable
existence, being as ably edited, perhaps, as any newspaper has ever been in New
Haven. Something of its quality is indicated by mention of such names of its
editors as James F. Babcoek, Cyrus Northrop. A. H. Byiugton, later consul at
Naples, Colonel William M. Grosvenor, Abner L. Train and Amos P. Wilder,
afterward consul-general at Hongkong.

The ITnion, New Haven's original one-cent newspaper, was founded by
Alexander Troup in 1871. Originally appealing to the class called the work-
ingmen, at times in its career reputed sensational, it has lived down all its false
reputation, and taken its place in even rank with other newspapers of New
Haven. Alexander Troup, long one of New Haven's valuable citizens, made it
a power in his time, and his sons have still further advanced it. It has been
Democratic for the most part, and its editor was a close friend of William Jen-
nings Bryan.

The Morning News was born of a composing room strike in 1882, and for
sixteen years lived a somewhat precarious existence. It had, however, a high
standing at one time, under the ownership of Professors Baldwin and Henry
W. Farnham, who made it the high expositor of political reform. But for six
years a city of 90,000 people had six newspapers, and it was too many. The
Morning News met the inevitable fate of the overcrowded.

About 1891 the Republicans of New Haven felt that they needed a party
newspaper in the evening field, and founded the Evening Leader. Colonel
Charles W. Pickett was made its editor, and continues in that position until now,
though there have been various changes in ownership. It continues to be a
Tlepubliean newspaper. About 1910 its name was changed to the Times-Leader.

The Saturday Chronicle was founded in 1902 as a weekly review of New
Haven politics, society and special events. It has been a well published, well
conducted journal in many ways, but it has not been especially prosperous.
For several years Clarence H. Ryder published it, but in 1912 Leo R. Hammond,
who had just resigned the Palladium to its fate, took over its management. It
is now the official organ of the Civic Federation.

New Haven has five scientific or technical journals, two each of Italian,

BKOAIJW AV BANK AND TRl'ST (X>MPAXV. NKW HAVKX

NEW HA\"EX S.WIXGS BANK. NEW HAVEX

AND EASTERN NEW HAVEN COUNTY 245"

German and labor newspapers, and nine Yale publications. Not all of these are
exclusively of interest to the college. The Yale News, for instance, the oldest
college daily, is a newspaper of value to the whole community. It was first
issued as a four-page, nine-by-twelve sheet in January of 1878. No names ac-
companied the publication as a guarantee of good faith, but it is known to have
been projected liy Frank V. 3IcDonald and Herbert W. Bowen, 78. The former
was a man of independent means and independent spirit, disapproving of certain
college secret societies, and it was pretty well understood at the time that he
started the News for the purpose of guying the senior societies Skull and Bones
and Scroll and Keys. The position of the News was stated in a two-column
article published in March of its first year, which began: "We have been asked
what motive we could have for such a relentless persecution of senior societies.
What is the use of grinding them so unceasingly?'' The article then proceeded
to give emphasis to what was conceived to be the undemocratic characteristics
of the society system and the consequent injury to the great body of students.
But this was a passing phase of the News, interesting as it is in connection with
its foundation. Within two months the founders had turned the paper over
to S. M. Moores, now the Hon. Morrill Moores, member of congress from Indiana,
who ran it under his own name. In the forty years since it has had a sometimes
strenuous but always progressive existence, and today it is not only the oldest
but the best college daily published, a newspaper model for those who would
publish most in least space.

The Yale Alumni Weekly was founded in 1891, and Pierre Jay of '92 had
as much to do with its founding as anybody. It was intended, as a weekly
edition of the News, to gather up especially good bits of college information and
pass them on to busy graduates. Lewis S. Welch took the management in 1896,
and published the Weekly for the following ten years, shaping it gradually to
its present useful form. The Yale Publishing Association, which then took it
over, has with Edwin Oviatt as editor and George E. Thompson as business man-
ager developed the publication into most admirable form, in which it finds
increasing favor with Yale graduates and many others. Both are sons of New
Haven, and among its most useful citizens. Mr. Oviatt performed in 1916 a
historical and literary service for which Yale and New Haven must increasingly
praise him, in his book "The Beginnings of Yale," a work of immense value
and a well told story. Mr. Thompson, who has shown himself a manager of high
ability, is unsparing of himself and his time in many forms of public service,
having recently been made treasurer of the Young Men's Christian Association.

The Yale Review, a quarterly now published by the same association, is a
siirvival in name only of an earlier magazine, and is now in its eighth year
under the new management. It has in that time taken a high place as a maga-
zine of international importance, of whose production New Haven is justly proud.

The "art preservative" in New Haven antedates the newspaper only by a
year. It has a long and detailed history, full of ups and downs, but the fittest
of those who have made it have survived. Early newspapers, and demands

246 A MODERN HISTORY OF NEW HAVEN

of the college for printing, furnished the business for a score of concerns which
in the century following 1754 had their day and ceased to be. The oldest present
firm is Tuttle, Morehouse & Taylor, which dates substantially from 1851. The
men who have made it a great institution in our time are Cornelius S. More-
house, a printer of the highest skill and finest ideals, a contemporary and friend
of Tiieodore L. DeVinne, and George H. Tuttle, son of the original Tuttle of
the firm, now its head and manager. This firm, with a wonderful record of
achievement, ranks high among the printers of America.

Another printing firm of more than state importance exalts New Haven in
the publication world. Its progenitors began to print directories in New Haven
a.s early as 1840. Price, Lee & Company, now incorporated as the Price & Lee
Company, was organized in 1873 as a publishing firm. A strictly printing firm,
the Price, Lee & Adkins Company, was organized in 1889. The publishing name
i-cmains tlie same today. Tlie printing house was reorganized in 1915 as the
Wilson H. Lee Company, which reveals the name of the man who for nearly
forty years has made the business in both departments. The house now issues
forty-one directory publications, which serve about sixty-three cities and towns
in Connecticut, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New Hampshire and New York.
Another of the old firms, engaged in newspaper making, is the Carrington
Publishing Company, which for more than half a century has issued the Journal-
Courier. It has a history going back to 1852.

New Haven has forty-six printing houses at present, some of them long estab-
lished, but more of them of recent growth, though doing, for the most part,
the good work which the standard of tlie leaders requires. Among these leaders
are the Whaples-Bullis Company, Van Dyck & Company, the Tuttle Color Print-
ing Company, the Ryder Printing House, the Ilarty Musch Press, S. Z. Field
and Bradley & Scoville, the last being also blank book maiuifacturers.

Great among the makers, in a city whose manufactories are so important
as are New Haven's, are the men who make those industries and direct their
course. Not a few of these men, much in every work for the city's advancement,
have repeatedly been mentioned. The genius of the gi-eat Winchester industry
for man.y years, a Ijusiness man to whom it owes nuich of its growth, is Thomas
(!. Bennett. Though now out of the active management, his work is well con-
tinued in these days by his son, Winchester Bennett. To Henry B. Sargent is
naturallj' and righth' ascribed much of the success of the great firm with which
he has since 1871 been identified, but his work for the welfare of New Haven
has been broader even than that. Walter Camp's activities have touched New
Haven at many points, but he has given first allegiance to the clock making firm
which Hiram Camp had so great a part in founding. No less valuable a citizen
is Edwin P. Root, who has a large part in the carrying on of this business, but
finds time for many New Haven activities besides. He has been in the clock

SECOND NATIONAL BANK, NEW H-WEN

AND EASTERN NEW HAVEN COUNTY 247

business since 1877. His interests are varied, and not the least of his service
for New Haven is as director of the Public Library.

The Acme Wire Company, which within a short time has had a wonderful
development, and is now one of the leading industries, owes a large part of its
success to the personal executive ability as well as the capital of Victor M. Tyler,
its president and treasurer. Next to him Edgar L. Hartpence, its masterly
general manager, has had much to do with raising it to a concern employing
almost a thousand men. Both are citizens whom New Haven values for many
other reasons. The work of Max Adler and Isaac M. Ullman in developing their
great industry, and their part in the upbuilding of New Haven, are well known.
Henry L. Hotchkiss and H. Stuart Hotchkiss have been powers aside from their
connection with the city's rubber industry. Howard E. Adt, one of the geniuses
of the Geometric Tool Company, is a citizen whoju New Haven prizes highly,
while Percy K. Greist of the Greist Manufacturing Company has been foremost
in many efforts for the good of New Haven. John B. Kennedy, conspicuous for
high citizenship, patriotic leadership and banking ability, makes it his principal
business to direct the English & Mersick Company, makei's of lamps and car-
riage hardware.

Andrew R. Bradley, George P. Smith and Theodore R. Blakeslee are the
men behind New Haven's leading confectionery industry, and all are citizens
of service and progress, ilr. Bradley recently passed from earthly activities.
Mr. Blak<?slee, youngest of three brothers who have been very much in the making
of New Haven, is a man of high ideals, who is ever ready to serve the public good.
Harry B. Kennedy, president of the Hoggson & Pettis Manufacturing Company,
is active in church and public work, a sincerely helpful citizen. Samuel R. Avis,
though a veteran manufacturer, is best known through his valuable service for
years at the head of the board of public library directors. Louis C. Cowles, head
of one of New Haven's sterling firms, C. Cowles & Company, which makes carriage
hardware, is a gentleman and a citizen of tlie fine old school. Clarence B. Dann,
of Dann Brotliers, Joseph E. Hubinger, head of a large starch industry, and Ed-
win S. Swift, thoroughbred manufacturer and whole-hearted citizen, are other
members of a great company.

Many merchants have made New Haven, which was intended by its founders,
it will be remembered, as a great trade center. Their ideals have been more
than realized. Men have gone on and names have changed, but many a business
has continued the policy of its founders since far back in the last century.
Older citizens well remember A. C. Wilcox, later A. C. Wilcox & Company,
whose store on Chapel, between Orange and State, was deemed one of the great
trading centers half a century ago. After Mr. Wilcox's death, it became Howe
& Stetson, and was greatly enlarged. There was another evolution in 1906,
when the business was purchased by Shartenberg & Robinson. It is now Sharten-

248 A MODERN HISTORY OP NEW HAVEN

berg's, and Henry M. Shartenberg, an able citizen as well as merchant, is its
directing force. An older department firm is the Edward Malley Company,
now well advanced in the second half of its century. At or near the corner of
Chapel and Temple streets it has been since Edward Malley the elder started
in a little country store building. Through successive managements, generally
under Malley financing and control, even if under other names, it has progressed
to its present degree of size and efficient service. Walter E. Malley is the present
head of the corporation. Mendel and Freedman have for approaching thirty years
conducted a popular department store on Chapel Street, and are old merchants
as well as respected citizens, with a remarkably efficient and modern store at
the present time. What was Brown and Bolton, then was F. M. Brown & Com-
pany, and since 1898 has been Gamble & Desmond, is one of the sterling firms of-
the city, now conducted by the second generation of its founders. Such a ' ' hall-
mark" store as one expects to find in a conservative community like New Haven
is the Charh^s Monson Company, established under its present name in 1892,
doing business on the south side of Chapel Street below Orange. Its present
head is Charles M. AValkei-, an influential and progressive citizen.

In many other lines New Haven has had able merchants, who have labored for
the public good as well as for their own advantage. There was Nathan T. Bush-
iiell, whose hardware store was always a place for superior goods; another Bush-
nell, younger, but of the same family, has long lieen prominent in the wholesale
grocery trade; C. S. Mersick established a I'emarkable firm for the wholesale
and retail distribution of building and plumbers' hardware, and it has been
advanced in recent years, as C. S. Mersick & Company, former Governor Wood-
ruff being its present head. John E. Bassett & Company is the modern continua-
tion of a firm- with considerably more than a century of existence, which is now
more efficient than ever in the sale of sterling hardware. George J. Bassett is
its present head. Edward P. Judd was long "the bookseller" of New Haven,
a man of wonderful ability, and a firm he founded still leads. Frank S. Piatt
is identified with a farm supply and seed business which has a wide reputation.
The Chamberlain Company, which the late George R. Chamberlain and William
'M. Parsons made a leader among furniture firms, is now headed by Robert
R. Chamberlain, son of the former. Frederick Meigs founded a prominent
clothing business, which still bears his name, and Colonel George D. Post is the
local head of another leading clothing firm. Miner. Read & Tullock and Dillon
& Douglass are two wholesale grocery firms made up of men who have had a
large share in the progress of New Haven.

In a literal way some men have made the city which is today. This is the
day of the engineer. Of men eminent in this profession New Haven has not a
few. It is a great task to direct the engineering activities of the enterprise which
the New Haven railroad has become in these days, so it may be safe to give its

AND EASTERN NEW HAVEN COUNTY 249

chief engineer, Edward CJagel, a leading place. He has deserved his success, and
done great things for the city in which he lives. One of the oldest of New Haven
engineers is Albert B. Hill. Some years ago he was city engineer, and in the
years since he has steadily grown in experience and ability, always contributing
to the best interests of New Haven. Many of the works of the New Haven
Water Company stand as monuments to his ability. Frederick L. Ford had a
high reputation when he came from Hartford in 1910, where he had been city
engineer. He came to the same position here, and under him the office has been
exalted and its work been made much more effective.

Clarence Blakeslee is the engineering member of the firm of C. W. Blakeslee
& Sons, and has made possible some of its most important eonstrnetion. He is
a thoroughly able engineer as well as a citizen of high public spirit and fine char-
acter. Perhaps his greatest work so far is the construction of a section through
an unusually difficult piece of territory, of the Catskills-to-Manhattan aqueduct.
Aside from this the greatest engineering work of the Blakeslee firm was the
construction of the "cut" through the city for the New Haven road, and of
this Dwight W. Blakeslee, another of the Blakeslee brothers, was the engineer,
and lost his life in the work. Charles A. Ferry's ability as an engineer has
already been told in the story of the Yale Bowl, which he designed. He was
a thorough engineer before, or he could not have done it. His wide reputation,
then achieved, has since been enlarged. He is a citizen, besides, of truly fine
character. Charles C. Elwell's ability was abundantly recognized by the New
Haven railroad before he came to the city, and has grown since until he was
made, first engineer for, and later a member of the Connecticut Public Utilities
Commission. New Haven values him highly as a man. Alexander Cahn has
gi'own up in New Haven, and from the time he chose engineering as his pro-
fession he has demonstrated that his choice was the right one. He has done
much excellent w'ork, and the city owes him a great public debt.

There are some makers who do not classify, for they stand by themselves.
There is hardly an institution to which New Haven of the past half century
owes more of abiding construction than to the Young Men's Christian Associa-
tion. Organized in 1866, it has had a career of struggle, for the most part, but
of late it has come into its own through service. In its beginnings small, always
needing more resources than it had with which to meet pressing demands, it
has been carried on from the beginning by men of sacrifice. Clarence B. Willis
was its first secretary, and gave it a wonderful start. Living in rented rooms,
not well fitted to its needs, for over three decades, it came about the beginning
of the century into its own home, a commodious building on Temple Street. It
had even greater burdens to carry then, and it staggered under the debt. Noble
citizens, such as Pierce N. Welch and John T. Manson. substantially assisted
it with funds, but it was not until after 1910 that it approached a supporting

250 A MODERN HISTORY OF NEW HAVEN

basis. Some of its secretaries in the recent period liave been William G. Lotze,
Robert S. Koss, and the present secretary, who has proved a saving executive,
and led the association to its best work, Judson J. McKim.

The makers of the future are not neglected. In the present decade New
Haven has made the leadership of its boj-s a public work. The public has
financed the Boy Scout movement and given it paid executive management.
Over a thousand of the b(iys are organized in nearly forty troops, attached
to churches and other organizations. For threet years, before the opening
of the war, Gilbert N. Jerome was the first paid executive. In 1917 he resigned
to enter the war aviation service, and the direction of the work fell heavily
again on the veteran scout leader, James P. Bruce, though a loyal local council
assisted greatly. Judge Mathewson was head of that council for several years,
but in 1917 Clarence W. Bronson was chosen to the position.

The story of the makers of modern New Haven could hardly be better rounded
out than by mention of a service which the nation's history already has recog-
nized, but which New Haven can never too intimately know. Among the finan-
cial and indu.strial developers of New Haven in the days just before and after
the Civil War was Cornelius Scranton Bushnell. native of Madison, an honored
son by adoption of New Haven. He was a man of remarkable force, a patriot
of saving vigor. How he saw the invention of John Ericsson, how he believed
in its virtue for the saving of the nation, how he petitioned Washington in vain
for financial backing for the first Monitor, how he found the money himself
in his own resources and those of his friends, how he made it possible for the
Monitor to appear at Hampton Roads at just the psychological time — these are
l)ut the high points in the history of his service.

Mr. Bushnell was not, as the world judges, a successful man. But there were
those in New Haven who believed he achieved what was vastly more worthy of
recognition than success. The outcome of their faith was the organization at
New Haven, on March 9, 1899, of the Cornelius S. Bushnell National Memorial
Association. The fruit of that association, in addition to the promotion of a true
estimate of Mr. Bushnell's character and work, was the erection in May, 1906,
on Monitor Park, at the junction of Chapel Street and Derby Avenue, of the
Cornelius S. Bushnell Memorial. It is a simple shaft bearing at its crest a vic-
torious eagle, and having inscriptions historically commemorative of the work
of Ericsson and Bushnell. It is a public adornment to New Haven ; its erection
is an ornament to the city's appreciation of patriotic service.

BUSHNELL MEJIOEIAL. XEW HAVEN

CHAPTER XXY
MILITARY NEW HAVEN

THE governor's FOOT GUARD AND ITS ANCIENT AND MODERN SERVICE — THE HORSE
GUARDS AND THE INFANTRY COMPANIES — NEW HAVEN 'S PLACE IN THE WAR
SERVICE OF TODAY

The Davenport pilgrims came l)e;iriiig arms; they are bearing- arms today.
They were a peaceful people, but they realized that peace must be conquered
and maintained by the sword. There was no question of universal military serv-
ice in those first days of the colony. Every male of able body between the ages
of sixteen and sixty was to be provided by the state with "a muskett, a sworde
and a bandalier" and the things that went with them, and turn out at stated
times to be instructed in their use. Bearing arms, in those dajs when mortal
foes surrounded, or were supposed to sui-rouud the elect on every side was a
matter of self preservation.

So every man was a soldier in the early days. The conditions l)red a inilitant
race. There was no military class in the distinctive sense. Indeed, for the first
century and a half of New Haven's liistory, its people did little fighting. But
they were able to .send etfective forces, when need arose, for the aid of their
neighbors and their governors in the Indian fights and in the French and Indian
War. So it was that Connecticut was able to present some sturdy, well trained
troops when the war of the Revolution came.

That, however, is a matter aside from the present purpose, except as it bears
on the fact that New Haven has had a continuous and effective military organ-
ization from that time to the present. The main body of soldiers, trained from
year to year, independent of the semi-private companies which from time to
time were organized for social efl'ect and military glory, formed the "Train
Baud'' or "Trained Band", the continuing military force out of which grew
the Connecticut Second regiment, and on that New Haven bases the claim that
this is the oldest military organization in America. Even without that distinc-
tion, it has a history in whose value and nobility New Haven, always its central
point of rendezvous, takes pride.

In the main the history of military New Haven is a history of the forma-
tion and growth of separate organizations, some of which have made their con-
tribution and lost their indentity in this larger organization, some of which have
never belonged to it. New Haven's oldest military organization is the Second

251

252 A MODEKX HISTORY OF NEW HAVEN

Company, Governor's Foot Gnard. It is popular, in these days when we -eem
to have made soldiering a matter of hard business, and shorn the soldier of all
gold laee and gay color, to scorn the •'ancient and honorable" private company
as a relic of a grandeur and glory that was. This is in forgetfulness of his-
torical fact, as well as of the contribution which such companies have made to
jtatriotic inspiration if not to actual service. The Govemor's Foot Guard has
outlived this false contempt. It does not depend on tradition alone for its
justification.

On December 28, 177-4. sixty-five men of New Haven met and signed an
agreement that they would study together, under competent instruction, the
military exercise until such time as they believed themselves competent
therein. That thereupon they would form themselves into a company, choose
their officers and suitably equip themselves at their own expense. It does not
appear whether th#se men had any premonition of the war that was so soon
to come; if they had, they failed to show it in their declaration of intention.

Be that as it may, they went ahead with commendable speed and enthusiasm
in their ta.sk of training and organization. In less than two months they had
progressed so far that they thought it proper to select their uniform, and that
was no dun and undecorative sartorial prescription, either. Dress coat of
scarlet, with collar and cuffs, silver buttons, white linen vest, breeches and
stockings, lilack half leggins. and small fashionable and narrow ruffled shirt
were among its details. A month later they elected their officers. Benedict
Arnold, as we well remember, then a druggist and sea captain, was made the
company's captain and commander. Two weeks earlier this same sixty-five had
prayed the General Assembly of Connecticut, then in session at New Haven, for
a charter, and that document was gi-anted without delay.

So it came about that this sturdy body of men, well officered, equipped and
as their bett-ers testified, well trained, were ready for action when an emergency
came. Their readiness made history for them. We are necessarily familiar with
the action which they took consequent to the reverberation in New Haven of
"the shot heard round the world." Private organization as they were, they
drew themselves up in l)attle array and demanded powder from the public stores.
Perhaps the selectmen were wholly within their rights in demurring, but the
Foot Guards had that which was more effective than argument. They got the
powder and they made quick time to Cambridge.

They went promptly, but they did not go thoughtlessly. Almost all of the
company went, though there was no compulsion. They went realizing that it
might be to battle and blood. They responded to the call of freedom and of
country. They resolved, as we know from a proclamation which they signed
at starting, to go soberly, decently and in submission to authority. They did
not, moreover, go as rebels to the authority of England. Their proclamation
was not anticipatory of the Declaration of Independence, though it did have a
little of that tone. An action -which they took just before starting on their
march is still more significant, and had a gi-eat bearing on their later history.

(iOVERNDR'S FOOT (iTAKl) ARMOKV, NEW HAVEN

AND EASTERN NEW HAVEN COUNTY 253

Filled with a sense of their responsibility, they lined up ou the lower Green and
listened to words of counsel and admonition, as we may suppose, from the pastor
of the North Church, Rev. Jonathan Edwards the younger. It is a matter for
regret that these words were not preserved for us, but out of that address grew
a Foot Guard custom of great value. It may be that there is something of the
spirit of sport and show in the annual celebration, continued to this time by the
company, of that start for Cambridge. It gives occasion for the entertainment
of guests, for a gorgeous parade through the streets, for a review on the Green,
for a feast at night. But it also gives occasion for a sendee in church, which
is altogether of serious intent and effect. The patriotic music, the service of
memorial for comrades deceased in the year, above all the sermon by the chaplain,
make a most impressive and valuable occasion. The public is freely invited, and
the discerning come.

The company was not destined to see bloody service on that trip to Cam-
bridge. The deed that precipitated the war was done before they arrived, and
there was little for them to do, for the first fever had gone dowTi. Their records
show that General Putnam accompanied tliem for the latter part of their march,
but neither he nor they found much to do. They remained at Cambridge for
three weeks, quartered in the splendid house from which the patriots had driven
Lieutenant Governor Oliver because he was too friendly with the British. Then
they marched back to New Haven.

It may appear that the company had little influence on the progress of the
Revolutionary struggle. Such was not the case. Boston and Cambridge were
then tlie center of things. These clashes at Concord and Lexington were Init
incidental, in the view of the time. It had not been decided whether the colonies
should take up arms against England. The.v had little idea what their strength
might be. But the appearance on the field of such a company as this, well
armed and drilled and especially — what counted most of all in those days,
though w-e may smile at it — gorgeous iu their uniform, had a tremendous moral
effect. They were the only completely equipped company on the scene, the
eqiial, it was said, to any of the British troops, and half a hundred men so
equipped and drilled looked large in those days of small armies.

The Foot Guards have always franklj- owned Benedict Arnold as their first
commandant. He marched with the company to Cambridge. He did not. it
seems, come back with them, but he had his honorable discharge. It was while
in ^Massachusetts that he conceived the idea that the capture of Crown Point
and Ticonderoga might be a serious interference with the British plans by inter-
rupting communication with Canada, and he was commissioned by Massachu-
setts a colonel to command such an expedition. The enterprise so appealed to
the Foot Guai-ds that twenty members of the company elected to go with their
captain. It was then that he parted with the company. That trip to Canada,
while not a Foot Guard expedition, was cherished in the annals of the com-
pany, and in 1911 the company celebrated it by a tour over the Canadian route
■which Arnold and his followei-s took, being everywhere received by the now
friendly Canadians with the extremest hospitality.

254 A .MODERN HISTORY OF NEW HAVEN

The parcer of tlie Foot Guards since that first exiDedition has been in the
main a peaceful one. The company has had its ups and downs, but generally a
prosperous existence. It met General Washington on his way through New
Haven to take command of the Continental troops, and escorted him as far as
the historic "Neck Bridge," this being the first armed military escort tendered
to the general. They had been compelled to make their Cambridge expedition
under the name of the "New Haven Cadets," being technically rebels against
the constituted authority. But only eight years later the General Asseml)ly
showed that all was forgiven by ordering the selection of New Haven to deliver
to the custody of the company sixty-four stand of arms, in recognition, it would
seem, of their valiant service in time of war.

On all occasions thereafter the company acted as the escort of the Governor
whenever he was in the New Haven district, always participating with the First
Company in inauguration events, and of late years tendering him a reception at
New Haven each year. The company has also assiduously observed all those
laws of hospitality which exist between organizations of this sort, no matter
what distance divides them. When Lafayette visited New Haven in 1824 he
was .suitably escorted by the Foot Guards. They have been the center of glory
in many parades during their century and a half. The most cordial relations
have existed between them and similar military bodies in other states. Early
in the nineteen hundreds they were guests of the Richmond Blues at Richmond,
and in 1908 the company returned the compliment, giving the Blues for three
days the freedom and the joys of New Haven. Such are their ties with other
companies that at the New Haven week parade in 1911 they were able to bring
to New Haven for participation the most distinguished military companies from
Connecticut, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, New York and New Jersey.

The company has never avoided military service, of which it has had not
a little experience. That same readiness to serve in actual war which took the
company to Cambridge at the first has always been shown in the organization
or in its individual memliers. Jointly and severally, the members of the com-
pany declared their readiness for the defense of the home town in the War of
1812. The company was called out in 1813 to quell a race riot at Long Wharf
between Swedish and Portugiiese sailors on one side and American sailors on
the other, and was effective. Twice the following year there was a scare
of British invasion, aiul each time the company stood ready, but the point of
actual warfare was not reached. The company participated in the fortification
of Beacon Hill in 1814, and later the same year, when the enemy landed at Bran-
ford, it assembled, but again the war failed to come to New Haven.

The Foot Guard had a most honorable record in the years of the Civil War,
though not distinctly under the name of the organization. The company be-
came Company K attached to the Sixth regiment, C. V., and its muster roll
shows three commissioned officers, thirteen non-commissioned officers and sev-
enty-six privates. Captain Henry C. Gerrish headed the company at that time,
and lost his life in the seiwice. along with ten others. The home organization

AND EASTERN NEW HAVEN COUNTY 255

was retained throughout the war, and th<} company was in service for seventeen
days during the draft riots of 1863.

In the Spanisli War, at the expense of the company, 341 men were enlisted,
and an infantry company of 106 officers and men were prepared for serivee and
equipped, ilany of the.se men entered the regular service for the Philippines
or elsewhere in the years following.

In the present war the company has furnished some memhers for the service,
but its gi-eatest work has been as a home guard. Few thought ever to see the
Foot Guards in khaki, but that was their garb in 1917 and the following year.
They have be<^n practically on a war footing, and though most of the men were
past the age for military service, they stood ready to be et¥ective in emergency.
So the record of the company of participation in all the wars of this countiy's
history is so far complete.

The company has had many notable leaders in its fifteen decades. When
Captain Arnold resigned, he was succeeded by Hezekiah Sabin, Jr., a New
Haven merchant. James Hillhouse the first was the third commandant of the
company, being followed in turn by Daniel Bishop and Nathaniel Finch. In
1810 the major commanding was Luther Bradley. At the time of the reorgani-
zation in 1893 Ben.jamin L. Brown was elected ma.ior, and held the position
for several years. For some time previous to 1909 Ma.jor Frederick W. Brown
was commandant, leading the company into one of its most prosperous periods.
That year Captain George T. Hewlett was promoted to ma.ior, and for the
following five years devoted himself with a zeal and enthusiasm greatlj' to be
praised to the maintenance of the organization in accordance with its standing
and history. He was succeeded for a year by Major Joseph A. Wooster, a
descendant of General Wooster. In 1916 Major John B. Kennedy became com-
mandant, and still holds the position. Under him the company has been main-
tained at a high standard of morale and efficienc.v, altogether in harmony with
its best traditions. Himself of Revolutionary ancestry, he fully appreciates the
noble hi.story of the company he commands, and has admirably succeeded in
instilling his own spirit into every member. To him is due in no snuill measure
the admirable showing made in the present war emergency.

Militan- training went steadily on in the years after the Revolutionary War,
but it was thirty-four years before another private company was raised. There
were two companies of the Governor's Foot Guards, due to the fact that the
seat of government alternated between Hartford and New Haven. So it came
about that in 1808 New Haven men with a penchant for equestrian display
thought that forty years was long enough for Hartford to have enjoyed the
monopoly of a Governor's Horse Guard, and the Second Company, Governor's
Horse Guard, was formed. It speedily became popular with men of sufficient
means to furnish their own mounts and equipment — no light burden of ex-

256 A MODERN HISTORY OF NEW HAVEN

pense, we niaj- believe. For the horse guardsman must not only have his own
mount — and the horse had to be a live aud stylish animal — but a uniform that
was wondrous to behold. It consisted, at the time of organization, of a blue
suit, trimmed with buff and a hat with a long white plume. These "knights"
were glorious enough for any governor.

They had, in the first half of the century, many times of festivity and of
glorv. But they lacked the historical distinction of the Foot Guards, so the
prestige of the horsemen seems to have lapsed materially in the days preceding
the Civil "War. That stimulation of military activity brought them back. The
company was reorganized, and celebrated the achievement by new suits. At
that time they are described as wearing a gray suit trimmed with red, black
leather leggins and bearskin hats. The officers wore ehapeaux with plumes.
The horses were decorated in harmon.y, being caparisoned with red collars and
red pommels for their saddles. Thus I'estored, though they saw only nominal
home guard duty during the war, they came into and remained in prominence.
Toward the end of the century, however, they lapsed again. From which it
naturally follows that about 1901 the Horse Guards were reorganized into cavalry,
becoming a regular part of the state militia. This time they stole a march on
Hartford, and became Troop A of the state cavalry organization.

Troop A, in turn, had its valuable but brief existence. For something like
fifteen years it was popular, and became strong enough to build its own armory
at 865 Orange Street, the state failing to help with funds. The character of
the gi-eat war having made cavalry superfluous. Troop A of New Haven, Troop
M which was later organized and Troop B of Hartford were reconstructed into
machine gunners.

The first infantry organization of those which later became a part of the
state's national guard was the New Haven Grays, as for a century they w-ere
known. The company was organized in 1816, and was preparing to celebrate
its centennial when great events began to upset all the plans of men and military
organizations everywhere. It was from the start a first class company, made
up of the finest young men in New Haven, well organized, well officered and
well drilled. It was New Haven's "crack" company, living strictly up to the
striking uniform which it adopted, whose color gave it its name. Its superiority
was no mere matter of local opinion, as the state military records for years
will testify, but a reality of devotion to duty, drill and marksmanship.

In the years between its foundation and the Civil War the company lived
the social life of the military organization of the time, entertaining and being
entertained. Sophus Staples, a young lawyer, was its first captain. He left
the city the following year, and was succeeded by Dennis Kimberly. At the
opening of the Civil War the company offered itself in a body, and went out in
the Second Regiment, Connecticut Volunteers, of which Alfred H. Terry was
colonel. At that time E. Walter Osborne was captain. It returned to New
Haven shortly after the battle of Bull Run, for it had volunteered for only

AND EASTERN NEW HAVEN COUNTY 257

three months. In 1862 it responded to the call for ninety-day volunteers, but
its services were not required. Shortly after that a company was recruited in
the name of the Grays for the Twenty-seventh Connecticut Volunteers, and
several of its oflSeers went with it.

Since the war it has had some of the best of its history, consistently main-
taining its standard in the Connecticut military organization. Several years
ago it k^came plain Company F of the Second Regiment, and at the time of
the national reorganization of the militia was required to abandon its distinctive
gray for khaki. It always retained its name until the final submergence which
followed the outbreak of the present war. It went into service on the Mexican
border in the summer of 1916 under the command of Captain Ellis B. Baker,
Jr. Called into service again after the entrance of the United States into the
war, it was merged in Company F of the First Regiment in the new One Hundred
and Second, and left for France under the command of Captain Raymond B.
Barnes of New Haven.

In 1828 there was a strife in the Grays that resulted in another company.
Charles E. Whittlesey expected to be elected captain that year, but the office
went to another. He and his friends felt so strongly that the position belonged
to him that they seeeded and formed another company, which they called the
National Blues. Mr. Whittlesey was elected captain, but he declined the office,
and Mason A. Durand was chosen. The company had an excellent organization
and record in the years before the Civil War. It did not enlist in that war as a
company, but the greater part of its members enlisted as individuals. After the
war it was reorganized. In 1870 it became Company D of the Second Regiment.
In 1884 Andrew H. Embler was its captain. For several years previous te the
federalization of the militia George C. Freeland was captain. He went with
the company to the Mexican border, and made so good a record there and in
the year following that when the company went out as a part of the One hundred
and Second, he was captain of the combined company.

The remaining New Haven companies were for the most part the outgrowth
of home guard needs in the Civil War, though to tliis the Sarsfield Guards, who
afterwards became Company C of the regiment, should probably be considered
an exception. This company, as it has in recent years been known, was formed
in 1865, but it was the outgrowth of the Emmet Guards, which date back to
1857. They had mostly disappeared in the years just previous to the Civil
War. Its stress aroused the young Irishmen of New Haven, some of whom had
formed the Emmet Guards, to the reorganization of the company immediately
after the war, as the Sarsfield Guards. Under that name it had a fine record,
which has since been maintained. The company became Company C of the
Second Regiment. As such it went to the ]\Iexican border and showed up as
real soldiers. It was a valuable constituent of the new Company C in the com-
bined regiment that went to Prance in the fall of 1917. It took its captain,
however, from the First regiment, Alfred W. Griswold of New Britain.

At the beginning of the Civil War a company called the City Guards was

258 A MODEKN HISTORY OF NEW HAVEN

formed which a year later became the New Haven Light Guards. It had a
large part in home defense during the war, and many of its members served in
different regiments at the front. After the war it was reorganized, and soon
after became, as Company E, a unit of the Second Regiment. It had ite taste of
war training at Nogales, and went into service in' France a year later under
Captain Joseph E. Felsted of New Haven.

There was organized during the Civil War part of a regiment of colored men,
which called itself the Wilkins Guard, after its first leader. It equipped itself,
accomplished a good organization, and as the First Separate Company was ad-
mitted to the Second Regiment in 1879. It had participated in all the activities
of the regiment thereafter until 1916. When the Connecticut troops were called
for the Mexican service, this company was not included. Except so far as its
members have enlisted with some of the colored troops at various points, it is
not included in the present service. But it has an admirable history and record.
Its present captain is Samuel W. Titus.

The Machine Gun Company was organized about 1880, and had a good record
in the twenty-seven years preceding the opening of this war. It had been largely
recruited, in recent years, from New Haven citizens of Italian birth. It went
into the war under the command of Captain John Shipke of Wallingford.

The organization out of which grew the Second Regiment, formed in colonial
days, has had a varied existence, but can be traced continuously. At present
it seems lost in the maze of military forces in France, but it is in a positive man-
ner preserved by the Second Regiment of the Connecticut Home Guard, of which
Colonel J. Richard North is commander. That out of tliis regiment the Second
Regiment of the Connecticut National Guard will be reorganized after the war
is over is a contingency not at all improbable.

The Connecticut Naval Battalion, now the Naval Militia of the Connecticut
military organization, had its' beginning in 1893, when a single division was
formed under Lieutenant Edward V. Reynolds of New Haven. It had grown to
three divisions in 1897, and its commander was Edward G. Buckland. Its bat-
talion headquarters has been New Haven fi'om the first. Its commander in 1917
was Cassius B. Barnes of New Haven, and most of its battalion officers were
from New Haven and vicinity. It has grown to five divisions and an aeronautic
section, and is now doing service in the war as an auxiliary to the regular
navy.

Ill

This record of the private and public military organizations of New Haven
takes on a look of strange unreality against the background of the great war.
Events of the yeai's 1917 and 1918 have altered all standards. New Haven has
been a very important center of recruiting and war service and war work.
Where something like a thousand men were two or three years ago in the military
service of the state, there now are over four thousand in various branches of the
nation's military service. In detail, these are: National Army, 1,023; 102nd

AND EASTERN NEW HAVEN COUNTY 259

regiment, 649; 101st, 103rd and 104th regiments, 160; Black Watch and First
Connecticut, 130; Medical Corps, 200; Aviation and Engineers, 170; United
States army, 870; Navy, 960.

This makes a total of 4,162. It does not, of course, take into account those
serving in the Home Guard, a number considerably exceeding, for New Haven
and vicinity, tlie thousand or therealiout who made up the old contingent in
the National Guard. Nor docs it indicate the other Jiundrcds, women as well as
men, who at home are doing constant service directly for war purposes. These
center in the organization known at the New Haven War Bureau of the Con-
necticut State Council of Defense, of which Hon. John K. Beach is chairman,
and Professor John C. Tracy director.

CHAPTER XXVI
THE PART OF WOMAN

WOMEN AS INDIVIDU.VLS AND IN VARIOUS ORGANIZATIONS — THEIR REMARKABLE CON-
TRIBUTION TO THE PREVENTION OF JUVENILE DELINQUENCY THE ACHIEVE-
MENTS OP THE SOCIAL SERVICE DANCE COMMITTEE

One may well imagine that when the tired pilgrims climbed from their
boats of the tumbling sea to the solid if slippery terra firma of West Creek banks
in that April of 1638, the men led the way. It was the order of the times. We
hear little of the women in the histories of that day. But looking back now, it
is impossible to imagine any of the activities of even that day in which women
failed of a substantial if silent part. In the centuries since woman has had an
unfailing influence in the development and the betterment of New Haven. In
the period of which this history treats it has been an organized and recognized
part.

The men ran the churches of John Davenport's time. They continued to take
an apparently great interest in them as long as they had political and govern-
mental features. Later they lost their interest, in large measure. Thej' were
content to elect the officers and fill all the conspicuous offices, but the doing of
the detail work, and in some cases the raising of a good deal of the money, they
presently became wholly willing to leave to woman. How woman accepted with-
out challenge this burden thrust upon her, how for two centuries she performed
her task for sheer love of the end to be sought, content to have all the honor and
all the praise go to the men — these are matters of common record not only in New-
Haven but elsewhere.

Earliest in its period of influence, cumulative up to the present moment, her
work in and through the churches must be put first in the record of woman's
part in the l)uilding and shaping of New Haven. Women's home and foreign
missionary societies are nmv in their second century. Women's aid societies, more
especially for local work, are at the vei-y fcmndatioii of the growth and influence,
and even of the continued existence of many, if not most, of the churches. And
no one who regards thoughtfully the history of New Haven can fail to recognize
how great a part the constantly increasing number of churches has had in its
formation. For that, therefore, which most especially makes the character of
the city we may .justly give woman eminent credit and praise.

260

AND EASTERN NEW HAVEN COUNTY 261

It may have been forgotten that when in 1833, there w.as formed in New
Haven a society for the creation and management of an asylum for orphans, the
name given to it was "The New Haven Female Society for the Relief of Orphans,
Half-Orphans and Destitute Children." There has been no difficulty, however.
in recognizing that this institution known as the New Haven Orphan Asyluni
was founded by women, has been largely supported by women and is in the main
conducted by women. It was started with ilrs. Abram Heaton as its tirst presi-
dent, in a cottage on Grove Street, near Church. Five years later it had to move
to quarters on Oak Street to accommodate its growing work. To be sure, it was
a mere man, James Brewster, who became the "angel" of the institution in
1854 and built the beginning of the edifices which it still occupies on Elm Street,
but he received his in-spiration from the unfailing work of the women. Men
have helped, then and since. Men always used to help with their work and
money in the annual donation days. James Brewster's son, Frederick F. Brew-
ster, came to the rescue again in 1916, when the growth of the institution made
it imperative that it have more room, he gave a large tract of land in Whitney-
ville for the new plant, and gave a generous start to the $250,000 fund for new
buildings. Men helped raise the rest of it. But when the new buildings, whose
erection i.s delayed by war conditions, arc erected, women, as they have done
from the tirst, will still cany on the noble work. And the foremost of the
women, in this case, will be Miss Lina M. Phipps, who for years has been the
guiding spirit of the institution.

St. Francis, the Catholic institution which jointly with the oue just men-
tioned, cares for the orphaned young of New Haven, was founded in 1865. Its
business affairs are managed by a corporation consisting of all the Catholic pastors
of the New Haven district which it serves, but the Sisters of Mercy do the actual
work of the institution, and here again the women have been for half a century
past laboring for the good of New Haven.

It is distinctly stated that the Home for the Friendless, which for some years
past has been located at Clinton Avenue in Fair Haven, was "started by benevo-
lent ladies." By such it has been conducted ever since, and through them the
money is raised for its support. Its original plan was to serve a piirpose some-
what like that of the Florence Crittenton Home, but since the Crittenton insti-
tution has come into .such adequate prominence, the Home for the Friendless is
given opportunity to do a somewhat broader work, and cares for destitute wives
with small children, for women without means who have become enfeebled in
health, or have reached advanced years without friends or resources. It is, in-
deed, in a large way what its name indicates. At the head of its board of man-
agement is Jlrs. J. M. Greist. ^

The Florence Crittenton Home, established in the eighties, was for nearly
thirty years on Oak Street at the head of Dwight, but in 1913 was enabled to erect
on Campbell Avenue in West Haven a building more adequate for its growing
work. Though one of the chain of homes which were started by a man, its
inspiration was a woman, and women have of necessity carried on its work.

262 A MODEKN HISTORY OP NEW HAVEN

The Young Women's Christian Association was organized in 1880, and of
course women were back of it. It was chartered in 1882, and shortly aft«r that
acquired the building on East Chapel Street near Wooster Square out of which
has evolved its present equipment. Miss Helena Wilcox, whose home was in Mad-
ison, was identified with it in the earlier years. Last year a campaigii was con-
ducted for securing funds for an enlarged building. It was successful, but like
much work of this sort, it is being delayed for better labor and building con-
ditions.

In 1872 there was formed a society called the United Workers, of which
women were the controlling factors and chief workers. The society did an excel-
lent general work, but its most conspicuous activity for a part of its histoiy,
was its conduct of a boys' club. This was started in 1875, and probably was the
first boys' club formed in New Haven. It was supported and its workers paid
through the efforts of the women. The value of its work is readily recognized.

No more valuable work has ever been started by men or women in New Haven
than the day nurseries, now the care of the Mothers' Aid Society. Nobody but
a woman would have thought of the idea of saving homes from breaking up
by providing for women suddenly thrown on their own resources for the sup-
port of themselves and their children a place where those children might be
cared for while they worked by day. The women pay a fee for this care, which
saves their pride but does not support the work. The women of the society see
to it that the deficit is made up. These nurseries have again and again been
praised as a force for conserving the future citizenship of the city. There are
three of them now, the Leila on Greene Street, the Hope of George Street and
one for Italian children on Oak Street. The president of the Mothers' Aid
Society is Mrs. Frank S. Butterworth.

A work of similar nature is that of the Elm City Free Kindergarten society
which provides for the care of young children who may not have satisfactory
home conditions, or whose mothers may not be able to take care of them
at all times of day. It has kindergartens at 49 Oak Street and 93 Water Street.
Its president is Mrs. Henry Brewer.

ilen and women have worked together in the Lowell House settlement work
at 198 Hamilton Street, which has repeatedly been mentioned elsewhere, but
the women have usually been in the majority. Its president is Prof. Henry
W. Farnam, and Dr. Julia E. Teele is its secretary.

The Visiting Nurse Association is primarily a work of women. Supported
by private voluntary subscription, it sends trained nurse visitors wherever in
the city they are most needed, usually for temporary service. The value of the
work thus done in relieving sickness, caring for those who need more time and
care than a physician can devote to them, and teaching habits of right living
and disease prevention, is beyond computation. The president of this associa-
tion is Miss Lillian Prudden, and the superintendent for some years past has
been Miss Mary G. Hills.

Such works as these are works of mercy and benevolence. Perhaps they

AND EASTERN NEW HAVEN COUNTY 263

are the most valuable that women have done in this community. But they are
not all. For the work of women reaches to every field of endeavor in its con-
stant course. Women, of course, have their patriotic societies here, and they
are not patriotic in name only. The Daughters of the American Revolution
have two chapters, of members worthy of their ancestry. The Mary Clap
Wooster Chapter was orgajiized in 1893. and its present regent is Miss Emily
Louise Gerry. It is now one of the largest chapters in New England, and in all
its twenty-five years has done a consistently practical and earnest work. Such
an endeavor as helping to finance the work of John Foster Carr in providing
practical guidebooks for immigrants is a good example of what its members
have done. A second chapter, the Eve Lear, was organized in 191.5, and as its
founders were in part from the older chapter, its standing is equally high. Its
regent is Mrs. John T. Manson.

The New Haven Woman 's Club was organized in 1900 as the Mothers ' Club,
which name may indicate something of its original purpose. It was to improve
the welfare of the younger generation, to make New Haven a better place for
it to live in. It has worked in many ways, educational, literary, social and
other. About three years ago, feeling that it might broaden the appeal of the
club, the name was changed to the New Haven Woman's Club. Its organizer
was Mrs. Prances Sheldon Bolton. Its president in 1917 was Mrs. James
Prior Wood.

A younger association, in age and character, is the New Haven Girls' Club,
which was organized in 1914. It has its headquarters at 14 Trumbull Street,
with a large membership, and is doing a good work.

The New Haven Council of Jewish Women exists to serve the welfare of
women of that faith in and near New Haven, and has a worthy record of service
for. the welfare of the community.

The New Haven County Farm Bureau, organized about five years ago, opened
to women of earnest endeavor an opportunity which they were quick to seize,
and New Haven women have already had an enviable share in a work which is
becoming state and nation-wide. The league aimed to improve the condition
of the farmer, but women must look after the farmer's wife. From New Haven,
the headquarters for this county, women have gone out to all the towns around
with advances of the efficient plans of the Farm Bureau, and of the Federal
Department of Agriculture for showing the farmer's wife how better to help
herself. Important results of this work have already been shown in the reports
of the Farm Bureau.

Women have associated from the start in the work of the New Haven Civic
Federation, but no more positive or important fruit of their work has appeared
than in the achievements of the section for the protection of minors.

In March of 1915 the federation published a study of the problem of girl
delinquency in New Haven, by Miss Mabel A. Wiley. It was not sensational.

264 A MODERN HISTORY OF NEW HAVEN

It showed, probably, conditions no worse than might be found in most cities
of the saine size, and some smaller than New Haven. But taken in connection
with reports that had been made of delinquency among boys, it convinced think-
ing men and women that it was high time to do something more and different
for offsetting the waywardness of some of the unprotected young.

Especially did the city need, they believed, a children's court. But why
stop at that? There w^as no proper provision for children, that is, minors, from
the time of their arrest until the time of their trial. The Organized Charities
Building, though ill fitted, had served this pui-pase in a way, but the number of
delinquents had increased to the point where it could no longer do this. It
was not a jail and could not, if it was minded to do so, ensure the retention and
delivery to the court the next day of those left in its care. Moreover, there
was no means except the service of an overworked probation officer to see to the
proper direction of delinquents kept on probation by the court. And there
was no woman probation officer.

Women had brought these matters to public attention ; women met the emer-
gency. They would not have been able to do this so soon or so effectively but
for the material a.ssistance of two of their niimber. The ^ft to the City of New
Haven, fully refitted and prepared for its work, of the Children's Building at
281 Orange Street, ha-s already been mentioned. With it goes a story.

Early in 1916 it was announced that some philanthropic citizen or citizens,
whose name was withheld, had purchased the building on Orange Street and
would refit it for a place of detention and trial for juvenile delinquents. There
was some wonderment, but the work began at once. Not until the spring of
1917, when the building was completed and opened, were the names of the donors
made known. The gi-atitude was greater than the surprise when they were
revealed as Mrs. Percy T. Walden and her sister, Mrs. Frank D. Berrien, and the
building a memorial to their father and mother, Mr. and Mrs. Joseph Whittlesey.
But there was a surprise of another sort when the full nature and purpose of the
building were made known.

For this was not a jail ; it was a home. It was not a place of stern tribunal ;
it was a place where the judge and the delinquent might talk it over in quiet
and without the publicity and other undesirable features of the police court,
and come to a settlement giving the youth all the chance the law allowed. The
whole arrangement was such as to attempt a cure for delinquency, not that
aggravation of it which the police and courts had so long, from no particular
fault of their own, been producing. It is as fine a tribute as could be given
to the spirit and discernment of womanhood in New Haven — for this was dis-
tinctly a woman's work — to describe the building somewhat in detail:

The building is one of the fine old residences of Orange Street, still bearing,
outwardly, all the attraction of the earlier days. It has none of the earmarks
of a police building or place of detention. Inside, it has a court room which
looks as though it might be the library of a gentleman prepared to receive
visitors, that gentleman being the judge. It ha-s two adjoining rooms where

AND EASTERN NEW HAVEN COUNTY 265

probation officers meet the boys and girls who report to them. It has detention
quarters for boys, which include single bedrooms, not cells, with equipment for
shower baths, central recreation room and supervisor's room. There are de-
tention quarters for girls, which also consist of comfortable rooms with single
beds. There is a pleasant dining room and house kitchen.

This is only a part. The court has to observe the law as to penalties, and of
course in the most flagrant cases the law must take its course, but there arc
very few of these. This building is not intended for the incorrigible, but for
the ma.jority who are corrigible. When the boy or girl enters that building —
it is through the basement — a bathing and sterilizing department does its best
to make him or her and the clothing clean outwardl.y. After the court has done
its part, the child is sent home if there is a place that can properly be called
its home. Often there is not, and that is the reason why the child is in detention.
In such a case, there are the disciplinary schools, one for the boys and another
for the girls. These are under the direction of the Board of Education, and are
used for the compulsory instruction of chronic truants as well as for those who
have been arrested. They are in many ways attractive schools. For the boys
they have their shops as well as schoolroom, with shower baths, playground
and garden. The girls have the same advantages, except that they may learn
domestic science instead of woodworking.

In some ways the work of this building is preventive as well as corrective.
Its whole attitude is that of winning, not punishing, the unfortunate child. It
is recognized that although what is for convenience called delinquency is
more often the sin of parents than of their offspring, and the whole plan of the
organization is to prevent, if may be, its repetition in another generation. Those
who have observed the workings of this institution in its comparatively brief
time of operation are convinced that its theory is sound, and that its plan will
be a success.

Ill

Some five .years ago a company of thoughtful New Haven women started after
the same end — that of preventing delinquency — by another course. The vice
of the dance hall, and the vice it bred, had been sadly shown. It was, as it then
existed, doing more than any other single thing to ruin the young girls — and
for that matter, the young men — of the city. The police wouldn't or didn't
stop it. It seemed that the sensible thing was an antidote. Why not try
offering the young people a place for dancing which should have more attractive-
ness than the dance hall of commerce, but none of its vicious elements, with a
supervision that would be real, but unobjectionable?

The first problem was to find the place. It did not take the ladies long to
discover, if they did not know to begin with, that certain of the modern school-
houses, having large assembly halls with good floors, were nearly ideal for the
purpose. But the Board of Education was not easily persuaded that such a use

266

A MODERN HISTORY OP NEW HAVEN

of the school halls was justifiable. By which they meant, perhaps, not that
they eared themselves, but that they felt unequal to the task of convincing the
taxpayers, some of whom would never get the ladies' point of view, and cared
mighty little, seemingly, about the girls who were going wrong in the dance
halls, that their costly school buildings should be used for dancing. Meanwhile,
the Board of Education tried to cover their excuse up with objections about
the difficulty of janitors, lighting, music and the like.

The ladies, seeing that they should need all the strength of organization as
well as the arts of persuasion, had meanwhile formed themselves into the Social
Service Dance Committee. The number was small at first, then increased, and
now has settled down to fifteen. Mrs. Stewart Means, the moving spirit of the
whole affair from the first, was and is the chairman, and for most of the time Mrs.
Charles W. Vishno has been the -able second in command, though most of the
ladies who have formed the changing committee from time to time have been
on it because they saw the point, and were willing and able to help.

It is not especially a matter of interest to trace the process of convincing
the guardians of the school buildings and securing the halls. It is sufficient to
know that they got them — five of them, eventually. They took them mostly in
the congested districts. Green Street. Truman Street and Strong schools
were the ones mostly used. Barnard School, in one of the less congested parts
of the city, was opened later simply because the dances became so popular that
those who might be expected to prefer less democratic places of gathering simply
demanded them. The fifth was Ivy Street School.

These were not free dances, however. The thing was run on a business basis.
The enterpri.se cost money. It was intended for those, in the main, who had
been paying money to attend dances at less desirable places. An admission fee of
twenty-five cents for the young men and fifteen cents for the young women
was charged. And as the attendance at certain times of the year rose to 1,500
a night, it is easy to see that the income was considerable. But so was the
expense. The Board of Education was paid $6.50 a night for each school hall,
which was supposed to cover the extra pay for a janitor and the lighting. The
orchestras were paid, not volunteer. There were paid dancing instructors and
helpers, the work of the committee being only supervisory. The committee
acted, so far as possible, as chaperons, giving a social status to the affairs.

These dances have been tremendously popular. Care has been exercised 'not
to have unpleasant overcrowding, but there have been no vacant places. Those
who came came again. They had a genuinely good time. They met young
people of their own age and of their own neighborhood. They had the best of
music and dancing of the highest class — not neglecting the popular. The ladies
who chaperoned had the time of their lives. They saw life as some of them had
never seen it before. They saw good being done by wholesale. And incidentally,
but important, the committee always had a good balance after all bills were paid.

And what was the effect on the common dance halls? The cheapest and the

AND EASTERN NEW HAVEN COUNTY 267

worst of them died without a struggle. The course which some of those deter-
mined to survive took is perhaps the most interesting development, at any rate,
the most convincing proof of the success of the effort. In Fair Haven, where
Strong Sdiool was on Friday evenings taking away all his people, the proprietor
of the principal dance hall saw a great light. He had a good hall, perhaps as
good as Strong School's. Yet the young people would go to the school when it
was open. What was the attraction? It must be the management of the ladies.
So this proprietor, wise in his generation, came to the committee with a proposi-
tion. They should take charge of his place two or three nights a week, and
he would be content with such a percentage of the profits as they saw fit to
give him. The ladies were not greedy : they were too pleased with their moral
victory to want any pay. But they made an equitable business arrangement,
and for some time took partial charge of this public dance hall, whose owner
made good capital out of their prestige.

When hot weather made the closing of the school dances imperative, the
ladies looked about for some means of keeping the work going through the
summer. They found the proprietor of the only dance hall at Savin Rock willing
to give them entire charge one evening in the week. He offered them forty
per cent over all expenses. They were content with twenty-five.

The committee now looks forward to the time when it may have its own
central hall in the city, where it may run dances several nights in the week,
as the school dances are conducted only on Friday nights. But in any case, it
feels that it has justified its faith, and those who know anything about the
results of the work think so too. The members of the committee for 1917-18 are :

Mrs. Stewart Means, chairman : Mrs. Charles W. Vishno, Mrs. F. W. Williams,
Mrs. W. A. Rice, Mrs. Robert C. Denison, Mrs. Henry C. White, Mrs. Edward
W. Hopkins, Mrs. P. J. Diamond, Mrs. F. T. Bradley, Mrs. Burton Mansfield,
Mrs. F. C. Porter, Mrs. Arthur T. Hadley, Mrs. Alfred W. Wakeman, Mrs. C. J.
Bartlett, Mrs. Joseph Whitney.

There is one woman who, in addition to participation in several of the
activities already mentioned in this chapter, has been a leader in many others.
Mrs. Berry L. Mott was for several years president of the Connecticut Congress
of Mothers, and through it and other organizations as well as individual work
has been very active for child welfare. For a year she was regent of Mary
Clap Wooster Chapter, D. A. R. In the present war emergency she is active
in a number of connections, chiefly, for the past year, the charge of a war farm
which women maintained near Race Brook, and which was a great success. She
has also for many years been a leader among the women in the work of Calvary
Baptist Church. She is typical of many of the w-omen of New Haven.

The work of the New Haven Chapter of the Red Cro.ss has for years been
carried on largely by women, and never more than in the present time. Rev.
Robert C. Denison is chairman, but Mrs. Edward G. Buckland, as vice chair-
man, is very active in carrying on the work. Some of her best assistants are

268

A MODERN HISTORY OF NEW HAVEN

Miss Edith Woolsey, Mrs. Raynham Townshend, Mrs. J. Morris Simmons and
Mrs. Isaac M. Ullman.

Such are only a few of the features of woman's public work in New Haven.
Her lines of endeavor increase with every year, as the scope of her activities
and opportunities widens. As it stands, it is a record in which to rejoice.

CHAPTER XXVII
FRATERNITIES AND CLUBS

THE ANCIENT ORDER OF MASONRY IN NEW HAVEN ODD FELLOWSHIP — THE KNIGHTS

OP COLUMBUS, ITS HISTORY AND PRESENT WORK FRATERNITIES IN GENERAL

SOCIAL CLUBS — THE TRADES UNION

The universal tendency of man to fraternize has its demonstration in New
Haven to an extent not often surpassed. There may be 175,000 men, women and
children in the city today, but it seems as if there were fraternities, societies and
clubs enough to hold them all. As a matter of fact, a great many of them are
members many times over, and he who doesn't belong to something is poor
indeed. Every organization in the long list has its purpose, some serious, some
seemingly trifling. There is a wide range, from the Chamber of Commerce for the
promotion of everything to the society for the promotion of cremation. Almost
every fraternity which the "broad empire of America can furnish is found here.
And there ai-e not a few that have been imported from other empires.

Thirty years ago, the historian was able to detail the list by name. Now
that is a task too gi-eat for anybodj^ short of the directory-maker. For there
were, by the latest official count, 473 organizations of all classes in New Haven.
These classified somewhat in this way: Fraternal, 204; religious and benevo-
lent, 46 ; social clubs, 47 ; war veterans associations, 12 ; miscellaneous, 164.

Inevitably, these reach a multitude of individuals — in fact, as has been said,
practically all the individuals in New Haven. But it is obvious that they cannot
be treated in detail. Some effort will be made to pay special attention to the
oldest and most historic, along with those which have had the greatest influence
on the life and development of New Haven. Several of these, in fact, have been
treated or will be treated elsewhere.

It is not alone as representative of the oldest fraternal orders that Masonry
should be given first place in New Haven's fraternity record. For the lodge
which stands first in the list of its Masonic bodies is "Old Hiram, No. 1."
And that means, in brief, that Hiram Lodge, No. 1, A. F. & A. M., was the
first chartered lodge in Connecticut. It was instituted by virtue of a warrant
granted on the 12th of August, 1750, by "St. John's Grand Lodge of Boston,

269

270 A MODERN HISTORY OF NEW HAVEN

as descending from the Grand Lodge of England." General David Wooster,
whose name is not otherwise unknown in New Haven annals, was the applicant.

General Wooster (he was Captain Wooster then) was the first ma.ster. The
old charter, dated November 12, 1750, is still preserved in the archives. The
first meeting was held the following month, and the lodge has had a continuous
existence ever since. It has been the ancestor of many societies of its order.
The old records are fragmentarj-, but sufficient to show steady interest, growth
and prosperity. There were many movings in the early years, though an effort
was made to provide an abiding home. The first meeting is believed to have
been at Jehiel Tuttle's inn, which is said to have been on the west side of
College Street, .just north of Elm. Two years later, the lodge moved to Joseph
Goldthwaite's, and appears to have met there mostly for the following decade.
Then there is mention of the "Bunch of Grapes" Tavern and the Fountain
Tavern, kept by Christopher Kilby, one of the brothers. In 1769 and the years
following there is various mention of Brother Robert Brown's, the Masons'
Arms and Brother Lathrop's. This moving habit was continued until 1801,
when there was an establishment in the house of Amos Doolittle which lasted
until 1813.

At the beginning of 1818 the lodge took up quarters in Harmony Hall in the
Union School Building, which stood on the east side of Little Orange Street near
the corner of Crown. It was a two-story structure, and at this time the first
floor was fitted for a school building and the second for a hall, which hall now
became the home of the lodge. Most of the stock was owned by the members
of the lodge, so that this might be called the first home ow-ned by the society.

This headquarters served until 1841, when the growth of the order in New
Haven, and the prosperity of Hiram Lodge, made a more adequate building seem
indispensable. This time it was proposed that the lodge erect its own liuilding,
wholly suited for its purposes. There was, however, an alliance • with the
Union School corporation w-hieh had to be continued or adjusted. The com-
mittee charged with the matter arranged with the corporation to sell its building
on Little Orange Street, and erect a new building with the top floor fitted for
lodge purposes. The effort succeeded, after some controversy, to have this new
building called the JIasonic Temple. It was occupied by Hiram lodge in 1844,
and served not only for this lodge, but for many years for all the Masonic lodges
of New Haven.

But within less than thirty years these quarters had become inadequate. The
Grand Lodge found them so unsatisfactory that it declined to hold its grand ses-
sion there in 1870, and found accommodations in the old State House. The Ma-
sonic bodies appointed a joint committee to secure a new temple. At that time
Cornelius S. Bushnell. one of New Haven's leading citizens, a member of Wooster
Lodge, was planning the erection of a lodge building at the southeast corner of
Chapel and Union streets, and the . committee arranged with him to make the
building a Masonic Temple, with the top floor laid out according to the wishes
of the craft. This temple was completed in 1872, and was said at the time to con-

AND EASTERN NEW HAVEN COUNTY 271

tain, in the "Blue Room" provided for Old Hiram, one of the finest lodge rooms
in the countr.y. It had been decorated, we are told, at an expense of $8,000.
Each of the other lodges leased its share of the Temple.

But that temple, after serving for over thiry years as the best home the New
Haven Masons had ever had, was found in the path of that merciless division of
Now Haven which the railroad made when it constructed its "cut" in 1905, and
the Iniilding was purchased for destruction. Somewhat suddenly, Old Hiram
was compelled to look for other quarters. ]\Iany of the other lodges had estab-
lished themselves in Masonic Hall on Church Street, which had become and still
is the headquarters of most of the JFasonic bodies of the city. But Hiram found
that the space available to it there was not adequate to its considerable needs.
Seeking other quarters, it tarried for a time in a building belonging to the Elks
on Crown Street, but soon went to what had formerly been the IVlasonic Temple on
Court Street, then the Steinert Building. There, in what- was called J'raternity
Hall, quarters comfortable but not altogether satisfactory, it met for the nest
ten years.

The move it made in 1915 is .justl.y regarded by Old Hiram as the most sat-
isfactory in its history. For this was into a building erected almost exclusively
for its own purposes, at a convenient central point in the city, handsome without
and sumptuous within. Hiram lodge is very proud of its building at 234 Crown
Street — not far. in a direct line, from where the fathers first landed only a little
?nore than a century before its institution — and so are all New Haven people
who pass it.

One hundi'cd and sixty-eight years of Masonry in New Haven is but out-
wardly sketched by these movements of its oldest lodge. The oldest records,
in their incompleteness, f-ail to show just how many charter members the lodge
had, ])ut the tattered old initial page of the record book holds the names of
twelve men who were present at that first meeting at Jehiel Tuttle's. It was
on May 4, 1916, at the old lodge's newest home on Crown Street, that Winton
C. Peck, raised to the sublime degree of Master ]Mason, made the one-thousandth
member. But in those years, also, the one lodge has grown to six lodges of the
A. F. & A. M. with several thousand members. In the immediate New Haven
district there are also lodges at West Haven, Hamden, Branford and North
Haven. There are two chapters of Royal Arch Masons in New Haven and one
in West Haven. There are two councils of Royal and Select Masters in New
Haven. It has its commandery of the Knights Templar, and three bodies of
the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite. So has the one body of 1750 grown
to fourteen Masonic bodies in New Haven alone. The eleven others in the county
eastward of New Haven are most of them direct descendants of the New Haven
body, mostly of Old Hiram. Nearly all of them are veterans, now, as to age
and standing.

Hiram Lodge, No. 1, instituted in 1750, has been duly described. Its master
for the present year is Samuel A. ]\Ioyle. Following historical rank, Woaster
Lodge, No. 79, was instituted in 1851. Its master for 1918 is Carl W. Johnson.

272 A MODERN HISTORY OF NEW HAVEN

The next lodge to be instituted in New Haven proper was Trumbull, No. 22, in
1869 of which George C. Stock is now master. Connecticut Rock Lodge, No.
92 4as instituted in 1864, and Carl A. Kandetski is master for the present
veLr Adelphi Lodge, No. 63, was not a New Haven body when instituted in
1823 being across the Quinnipiac in what was then East Haven. It thus comes
next' in age to Old Hiram. It meets in Masonic Hall on East Grand Avenue,
and its master for 1918 is Ellsworth E. Cowles. Olive Branch Lodge, No. 84,
in the Westville district, has since 1857 had a flourishing history. It has its
own Masonic Hall at 905 AA'halley Avenue. Hugh Gibb is its master for 1918.
West Haven also has its Masonic Temple, and its flourishing lodge, insti-
tuted in 1873, is Annawon, No. 115. Joseph E. Southerton is its present master.
Branford has' one of the old lodges of the state, Widow's Son, No. 66, instituted
in 1825. It meets in its own commodious Masonic Hall. James Milne, Jr., is
its master. Day Spring Lodge, No. 30, of Hamden, is very old among the
lodges, having been instituted in 1794. Its meeting place is in the Town Hall at '
Centerville, and its worthy master for 1918 is Leroy C. Wright of Wliitneyville.
North Haven's lodge is Corinthian, instituted in 1867. H. Wilson Clinton is
its master for 1918.

Franklin Chapter, No. 2, Royal Arch Masons, was instituted in New Haven
in 1818. Its present master is Daniel H. Gladding. Fair Haven East also has
its Crawford Council, No. 19, of the same order, instituted in 1852, and Edwin
C. Hitchcock as master.

New Haven has No. 2 Commandery of the Knights Templar, instituted in
1825. Its eminent commander for 1918 is John B. Freysinger of Stamford.

The bodies of the Ancient Accepted Scottish Rite in New Haven are the
E. G. Storer Lodge of Perfection, instituted in 1874; the Elm City Council,
P. of J., 1876 ; and the New Haven Chapter Rose Croix, also instituted in 1876.

Of the Order of the Eastern Star, the women's auxiliary of the Masonic
order, there are six chapters : Excelsior, No. 3 ; Myrtle, No. 6 ; Mystic, No. 20 ;
Ethel, No. 28; Golden Rod, No. 34; Palestine, No. 67.

Of the Order of the Amaranth, Unity Court, No. 3.

Colored Masonry has also a long standing in New Haven, with its own
. Masonic building at 76 Webster Street. It also has No. 1 lodge, being Widow's
Son, P. & A. M. There is also Oriental Lodge, No. 6.

The other colored bodies are Eureka Chapter, No. 9, Order of the Eastern
Star; St. Paul's Commandery, No. 9, of Knights Templar; Arabic Temple, No.
40, A. A. 0. N. M. S.

Though the origin of Odd Fellowship in England dates well back toward
the beginning of the eighteenth century, the century following that was well
advanced before it had made positive beginnings in this country. September
3, 1839. the date of the institution of the first lodge in New Haven, was only

AND EASTERN NEW HAVEN COUNTY 273

twenty years later than the institution of the first lodge in the United States,
and it was the beginning of Odd Fellowship in Connecticut.

That was substantially eighty years ago. In that time Quinnipiac Lodge
lias grown to ten lodges in New Haven, with a membership of 2,930 and a.ssets
of $105,994. But the spirit of equal franchise entered into Odd Fellowship
earlier than it did into some other orders. Only thirty years later than the insti-
tution of the first lodge of independent male Odd Fellows the first Rebekah lodge
was started here. This was Naomi Rebekah Lodge, dated August 20, 1869.
Today there are four Rebekah lodges in the city, with a membership of 601, and
assets of $9,987.

Only four years later than the institution of the first lodge in New Haven
there was found a sufficient number of those who had passed the three primary
degrees of Odd Fellowship to form an encampment. The first to be instituted
was Sassacus, on August 17, 1841. At present there are three encampments,
with 514 members, who hold assets of $16,197. Of the Patriarchs Militant,
or military branch of the order, there are two cantons in New Haven, Sassacus
and Aurora.

New Haven is the mother of Odd Fellowship in Connecticut, having No. 1
of lodges, Rebekah lodges, encampments and cantons. Properly, then, the
Grand Lodge has its headquarters in the city. In the Odd Fellows Building
on Crown Street, William S. Hutchi.son, for many years the grand secretary
and administrative officer of the Grand Lodge, has his headquarters, and there
the Grand Lodge has its gatherings.

The history of Odd Fellowship in Connecticut is largely a record of the
promotion work done from New Haven. An organization whose principles are
the bonds of friendship, love and truth, whose pillars are faith, hope and love
and whose foundation is belief in a Supreme Being, naturally inspires the mis-
sionary spirit. No narrow lines are drawn against those who would, enter it.
hut there are plain requirements as to moral character, and certain objection-
able occupations, chiefly saloonkeeping, bartending and gambling, are barred.
On such a basis, largely from headquarters in New Haven, has been built up in
Connecticut an edifice of 25,857 members, who meet in 91 lodges. The total
assets of the Grand Lodge at the end of last year were somewhat over one
million dollars, of which $835,821 consists of invested funds. In the Grand
Encampment there are 5,643 members, and its assets at the end of the year were
$82,333. There are 61 Rebekah lodges in the state, with a total of 9,600 members,
6,345 of them female and 3,255 male. This is Connecticut's part of the 2,203,301
persons belonging to the order in the world.

The names of the ten lodges of the I. 0. 0. F. in New Haven, in the order of
their institution, are: Quinnipiac, No. 1; Harmony, No. 5; Montowese, No. 15;
City, No. 36; Croswell, No. 39; Svea, No. 40; Polar Star, No. 77; Germania. No.
78 ; Relief, No. 86 ; Humboldt, No. 91.

The encampments are Sassacus, No. 1 ; Golden Rule. No. 24 ; Aurora, No. 27.

274 A MODERN HISTORY OF NEW HAVEN

The two cantons of the Patriarchs Militant are Sassacus, No. 1, and Aurora,

No. 12.

The four lodges of the Daughters of Rebekah are Naomi, No. 1 ; New Haven,

No. 3 ; Deborah, No. 14 ; Columbia, No. 15.

There are three bodies in New Haven of the G. U. 0. of 0. F., or order of
colored Odd Fellows. These are Christian Star Lodge, No. 1484 ; Unity Lodge,
No. 6398; Household of Ruth, No. 52.

These have their own headciuarters on Goffe Street.

Ill

Among the almost myriad societies, fraternities and various social organiza-
tions in New Haven, one stands out with such prominence as to give it eminent
historical distinction. For the Knights of Columbus is the only fraternity, now
of national or even larger magnitude, which had its initial organization in New
Haven. It is, moreover, the development of the past thirty-six years. In New
Haven still is San Salvador Council, No. 1, and in New Haven, as from the begin-
ning, is its supreme office. It has been an aid of the Catholic Church through
the holding together of its men. Its principles have been the noble ones of the
church, exalting in a direct way and keeping in the minds of its men the ideals
for which it stands. It has a wonderful record, and New Haven is proud of it.

All this and more the story of the origin of the movement, of its progress and
achievement, will best tell. It may best be told from within, and it merits such
prominence. William J. McGinley, supreme secretary of the order, has furnished
these facts in the history of the Knights of Columbus i

The preliminary organization was accomplished in the City of New Haven
February 2, 1882. by Rev. il. J. McGivney, Rev. P. P. Lawlor, James T. Mullen,
C. T. Driscoll, Dr. il. C. O'Connor, Daniel Colwell, William M. Geary, John T.
Kerrigan, Thomas M. Carroll, Bartholomew Healey, Michael Curran and James
McMahon. At a preliminary meeting. Rev. ^I. J. ilcGivney was selected as a com-
mittee to visit Boston and request the Massachusetts Catholic Order of Foresters
to grant these gentlemen a charter for a local branch of their society. The peti-
tion was refused, and Father McGivney, on his return, presented to his associates
plans which he himself had constructed for the establishment of a society of
Catholic men.

On March 29, 1882, the Connecticut Legislature granted a charter to Rev. M.
J. McGivney, Rev. P. P. Lawlor, James T. ^Mullen, C. T. Driscoll, Dr. JI. C.
O'Connor, Daniel Colwell, William M. Geary, John T. Kerrigan and Michael Cur-
ran. These men are .justly entitled to the honor of having designed and planned
the ceremonials and degi-ees of the order. However, the distinction of having
selected the name "Knights of Columbus" for the society must go to Rev. M. J.
McGivney, who from the start was unquestionably the leading spirit in laying
the foundation upon which this .splendid Catholic fraternity has been erected.
The specific purpose of the organization was to establish a Catholic fraternal

AND EASTERN NEW HAVEN COUNTY 275

society tliat would lie an uplifting intluence in the lives of Catholic men sociallj' ;
the bringing together of successful Catholic men to the end that they might,
through their united efforts, advance the cause of Catholic charity and Catholic
education, and still further that they might, through their insurance department,
furnish at least temporary financial aid to the families of deceased members.

On February 2, 1882, the organizers met and established themselves as the
Supreme Committee, composed of the following supreme officers :

James T. ]\Inllen, Supreme Knight.

John T. Kerrigan, Deputy Supreme Knight.

Rev. M. J. McGivney, Supreme Council Corresponding Secretary.

James T. McMahon, Supreme Council Financial Secretary.

Jlieliael Curran, Supreme Council Treasurer.

Cornelius T. Driscoll, Supreme Council Advocate.

Rev. P. P. Lawlor, Supreme Council Chaplain.

Dr. il. C. O'Connor, Supreme Council Physician.

Daniel Colwell, Supreme Council Lecturer.

On ]\Iay 15, 1882, the Supreme Committee granted the first subordinate coun-
cil charter. This council was located in the City of New Haven, and was named
San Salvador Council No. 1.

The necessity of some plan for the ofifiecring and control of subordinate coun-
cils now engaged the attention of the Supreme Committee, which finally decided
on the following: Grand knight, deputy grand knight, chancellor, warden,
trea.surer, corresponding secretary, financial secretary, chaplain, advocate, physi-
cian, lecturer, three trustees. At this time the Supreme Committee exemplified
the ceremonials of the society for the new subordinate council. They consisted
of First, Second and Third degrees, together with an elaborate presentation of
charter to subordinate councils.

The plan of developing the organization from this time wa.s one of organizing
subordinate councils in the different cities and towns throughout the state of
Coimectieut, and it was not until April 15, 1885, when a subordinate council was
established at Westerly, R. I., as Narragansett, No. 21, that the influence of the
order was extended beyond the parent state. The original organizers had no
larger vision of the society's future than that its usefulness would be confined to
Connecticut. Their imagination did not picture the great part that it would
in the future play in the social life of the Catholic men of America.

At this time the Supreme Committee enacted a law providing that a Supreme
Council should be established composed of the Supreme Committee and dele-
gates from subordinate councils, each council to be entitled to one delegate to
each fifty members. This method, after a time, proved embarrassing, because of
the number of delegates it provided for the Supreme Council, and resulted on
May 14, 1886, in action of the Supreme Council resolving itself into the "Board
of Government," this board to be composed of what had been the Supreme Com-
mittee, and grand knight and past grand knight of each subordinate council.

Meanwhile, the order had been extended to still other states. On April 23,

276 A MODERN HISTORY OF NEW HAVEN

1891, Council No. 60 was established at Brooklyn, N. Y. On April 10, 1892,
Bunker Plill Council, No. 62, was established at Charlestovvn, Mass., and a little
over a month later Home City Council, No. 63, was formed at Springfield, Mass.
At the same time it Ix'canie apparent that further changes in the method of gov-
ennnciit would iic necessary. Provision was therefore made for the establishment
of .state councils, to be composed of two delegates from each subordinate council
in the state. By virtue of their offices, the grand knight and past grand knight
of each council bi»came such delegates, the state council being convened and pre-
sided over by the supreme knight. The first of these state councils was organized
at Providence on April 22, 1893. On April 24 the second was organized at Bos-
ton, Mass., and only two days later a state council for Connecticut was formed
at New Haven.

On April 29 of the .same year the Board of Government was succeeded by a
new lx)dy called the National Council, composed of the state deputy and past
state deputy of each state council, together with one delegate for each thousand
members of the insurance ela.ss. It was further provided that where the number
of councils and membership in any state was not sufficient to organize a state
council, the supreme knight should appoint a chief executive officer, to be known
as "territorial deputy," who by virtue of his office should be a delegate to the
National Council.

Associate members, consisting of men advanced in years, or for other rea-
sons unable to pass a satisfactory insurance examination, were first admitted
to the order in 1893. They derive all benefits with the exception of the insur-
ance feature. The World's Columbian Exposition at Chicago in 1893 gave the
society a great impetus in some previously undeveloped states, including New
York, and in 1895. after the institution at New York City of Council No. 124,
the organization of the Atlantic Coast and Middle States was accomplished.
The first grand exsmplificatiou of the fourth degree took place at Lenox Lyceum,
New York City, on February 22, 1900, when over 1,200 candidates from all
])arts of the United States, including many prominent ecclesiastics, received
the honors of the degree.

At present the organization is represented in every state and territory of
the Union, every province of the Dominion of Canada, in Newfoundland, the
Philippines, Mexico, Cuba, Panama, Porto Rico and Alaska. The membership
is of two chisses, insurance and associate, and on February 1, 1918, was made
up of 123,577 insurance and 268,483 associate members, a total of 392,060.

In the thirty-six years of its existence, the society has accomplished great
results in providing education and comfortable homes for Catholic orphans, pre-
serving them in the faith, and insuring their training as patriotic and useful
citizens ; endowing scholarships in Catholic colleges, providing lectures on Cath-
olic truth ; participating in various charitable works, such as endowing hospital
beds, sending sick members to sanatoria and otherwise meeting the needs of
those within its reach. It has established at the Catholic University of America,
at an expen.se of $50,000, a chair of American history, with a further expendi-

AND EASTERN NEW HAVEN COUNTY 277

ture of several thousand dollars in connection therewith for library purposes.
The order has presented an endowment fund of $500,000 for fifty scholarships
at the Catholic University of America, thereby going far toward placing that
institution on a sound financial basis.

Tlie order has already paid to heirs of deceased members $10,475,000. It
has been largely instrumental in leading the United States Government to estab-
li.sh in the City of Washington a memorial to Christopher Columbus. Finally,
in several cities of the country the order has been active in the work of
establishing libraries of Catholic literature, and throughout its whole sphere
of activities it is accomplishing a wonderful work in the erection of council
liomes, which are the scene of Catholic social activity, and must inevitably
result in the permanent elevation and advancement of the people.

So much for history. The rest of the story of the Knights of Columbus is
a statement of present time. The organization has proved its virility and
humanity by its participation in the struggle of the world. When certain of
the troops of the United States went to the Mexican border in 1916, the Knights
saw the need of rendering to the men such a service at the front as the order
had for years been giving them at home. Almost involuntarily, under the
urge of that need, it established buildings and recreation centers at some fifteen
points along the border, intended for all who would use them, but with especial
reference to the needs of Catholics. This work was supported out of the
organization's omti fund, without any public appeal.

This gave the heads of the order such a vision of the possibilities of the
future that when the war broke in 1917 they were ready. Immediately they
tendered the services and resources of the order to the President. The ofl'er
wa.s accepted, and the organization took steps to raise a fund of a million
dollars for the work. The call for this was sent out to members. But the
inadequacy of such a sum was early apparent, and it was speedily followed
by a call for three millions, and to this the response came from everywhere.
This is but a beginning, and at present the organization, planning without
restriction to extend its work in the fullest manner wherever our soldiers go,
antici])ates the need of calling for several millions more. The work, if it ever
was within sectarian limits, long since outgrew them, and the Knights at home
and abroad are working side by side with every agency for the moral support
of the men w^ho fight.

The official statement says that the buildings of the Knights of Columbus
are open all the time for all soldiers, to be used for recreational, social and
religious purposes. There is no propaganda for the benefit of the order. The
supreme purpose is to do good. The religious use of the buildings, of course, is
by the church which stands back of this order. But there is no competition
with the Young Men's Christian Association except to outstrip it in doing good.
None of the money is wasted, most of the added detail work which this enter-
prise makes necessary being done by regular employes of the order, either at
Washington or New Haven.

278 A MODERN HISTORY OF NEW HAVEN

The program, being steadily carried out, iu large measure, includes the
erection, equipment and maintenance of at least three buildings in each of the
army cantonments, two buildings in each of the national guard encampments,
and one each in the various other military and naval stations. Volunteer chap-
lains are to be furnished wherever there is need. It is planned to spend almost
three millions of dollars for work in the United States, and about five millions
more for the work overseas.

At the end of 1917, the society had seventy buildings completed and iu
operation in this country, with five others under way or authorized. These
were situated at the cantonments and encampments all the way from Ayer,
Mass., to American Lake, Wash., and from Palo Alto, Cal, to Jacksonville, Fla.
And seven chaplains in the service of the order had been stationed at points
where buildings were not then erected. There were forty-nine chaplains and
137 secretaries already at work in the buildings. Abroad there were one com-
missioner and one secretary, and seven chaplains in the service of the order.
This overseas work had dated mostly from December first of 1917, for not until
that time had permission been granted for voluntary chaplains to go within
the lines.

Such is a sketch of the magnitude of a great work, begun and carried on
from New Haven. It may rightly be considered much more than a development
of a social organization. It is rather the record of an organization with a great
purpose, that has risen nobly to a great occasion.

There is a host of other organizations, some of them represented by many
constituent bodies. Of these, probably the most prominent is the Knights of
Pythias, an old organization long established here and having now twelve lodges.

The New England Order of Protection, a younger organization, having the
insurance as well as the social purpose, has long been flourishing in New Haven.
It has now twelve lodges.

The Ancient Order of United Workmen has been represented in New Haven
since 1868. It has now ten lodges, flourishing and serving their purpose well.
The Order of United American Mechanics has six councils. The Foresters of
America have seven camps, the Ancient Order of Foresters two, and the Inde-
pendent Order of Foresters one. There are four camps of the Woodmen of the
World.

The Fraternal Benefit League has eight councils. The Royal Arcanum has
five. The Improved Order of Heptasophs has four bodies. The Degree of Honor
has two lodges. The Patriotic Order of the Sons of America has two camps,
and there are three castles of the Knights of the Golden Eagle.

The U. 0. G. P. has seven lodges, and the Improved Order of Red Men
has four. The Knights jf The Maccabees have one organization, and the Ladies
of The Maccabees have four. There are two lodges of the Modern Woodmen of

AND EASTERN NEW HAVEN COUNTY 279

America. There are six representatives of the Order of Shepherds of Bethlehem,
and two of the Star of Bethlehem. There are two lodges of the Patriotic Order
of America, and two of the Sons of St. George.

The Sons of the American Revolution are represented by a strong chapter,
which does a patriotic work of great value for New Haven. The Daughters
of the American Revolution, mentioned elsewhere, are doing their full part.
Irish patriotism is promoted by three divisions of the Ancient Order of Hiber-
nians. There are three bodies of the Independent Order of B'rith Abraham.
To this host might be added a considerable number of societies having a single
representative, which are included in the 164 "miscellaneous."

The Benevolent and Patriotic Order of Elks is represented in New Haven
by a single body, but that is a strong and effective one, with its own building
on Crown Street. Its membership is large and live. It is identified with many
community works, notably an annual Christmas benefit for the needy, which
is entirely worthy of the first letter of its name.

The Eagles, one of the youngest of orders in the city, has a single aerie,
which is progressive and prosperous.

There are fourteen temperance societies, including four Woman's Christian
Temperance unions and two lodges of the Golden Cross, four Loyal Temperance
leagues and a lodge of Sons of Temperance. The familiar "T. A. B.," well known
for its worthy work among Catholic men, young and old, is represented by
three societies.

Twelve organizations represent the veterans of the wars that have been.
The Grand Army of the Republic has seven posts, with long and honorable
history. There are two posts of the Sons of Veterans, one of Naval Veterans,
one of I^nion Veterans and one of Spanish Veterans.

It has been grandly said that "the social clubs of New Haven exceed in
number and general features of attractiveness those of any city of its size in
the United States." Be that as it may, they seem to be sufficient to answer
all purposes. The oldest of them is the Quinnipiac Club, which was foimded
back in 1871, when the social club was, at least for New Haven, a novelty.
It was frankly named from the Indians, and its first president was Frederick
B. Mallory of the Mallory, Wheeler Company. Some of the presidents since
him have been Hon. Nehemiah D. Sperry, Gen. George H. Ford, who was one
of the original members, William S. Pardee and the present incumbent, Gardiner
E. Wheeler. It has been a prosperous club from the first, including in its
membership many of the worth-while men of New Haven. It "boarded around"
for the first eighteen years of its existence, but in 1889. purchased its present
home on Chapel Street ad.ioining the Taft Hotel on the east. The builders of
the hotel tried in vain to purchase the property, that they might have a greater
front on Chapel Street.

280 A MODERN HISTORY OF NEW HAVEN

The Uuioii League Club, perhaps because of its larger namesake, has some-
times enjoyed the reputation of being a political organization. In fact, it was
organized to promote the interests of the Republican party. But of late years
its" other object, to promote the welfare and enjoyment of its members, has
come to the front, without permitting politics to suffer. It was organized in
1884, and Thomas R. Trowbridge was its first president. Since him some of
the presidents have been George B. Martin, who held the office in 1899, and
the present head, Seymour M. Judd. It has a fine building erected especially
for its occupancy at 1032 Chapel Street, on the site of the old Roger Sherman
homestead. It has been famous for its political gatherings and its entertainment
of visiting Republicans of distinction.

Even more frankly political in its purpose is the Young Men's Republican
Club, which has its commodious and convenient home at the corner of Crown
and Temple streets. It was the outgrowth of the enthusiasm of the Blaine
campaign of 1884, when it seemed that something should be done to draw
1he young men of New Haven into the Republican party. It has ever since been
a popular organization for Republicans, some of whom were not strictly youth-
ful. But measured by its force and vigor, it has truly been one of the boys.
Its membership rises well toward the 2,000 mark. In 1899 its president was
John F. Gaffey. For some years in the early nineteen hundreds Frank J. Rice,
later to be one of New Haven's most notable mayors, was its president. Its
present executive is Frank L. Shay.

In 1885 some of the Hebrew citizens of New Haven formed the Harmonic
Club to serve the social needs of the members of thejr race. It has had since
an honorable history, and its fine home at the foot of Elm Street has often been
opened for social affairs which attracted all interests of the community. It
was organized under the name of the Utopia Club. Max Adler was its honored
president in 1889, and for more than ten years afterward. Its president now
is I. M. Rosenbluth. The club numbers in its membership many prominent and
respected citizens not only of New Haven but of Connecticut, being without
doubt the most prominent Hebrew organization of its sort in the state.

The Knights of St. Patrick is a prosperous and excellent elub whose mem-
bership is of citizens of Irish birth, and has been highly popular from the start.
It established itself first at the corner of Crown and Temple streets, opposite
the Young Men's Republican Club, where it splendidly fitted up for its pur-
poses an old and historically famous house. When that was purchased by the
United Illuminating Company in 1906, the club removed to 223 Orange Street,
where it has a still better clubhouse.

Another club of the same nationality is the Knights of Columbus Club,
whose home is now at 436 Orange Street. It is a strong organization, providing
the best amusement and social facilities for young men and old in the large and
growing Knights of Columbus circle.

There is an abundance of collegiate clubs, but the Graduates' Club, admitting
to its membership graduates of all colleges, belongs distinctly to the. city. It

AND EASTERN NEW HAVEN COUNTY 281

occupies at 155 Elm Street one of the oldest houses in New Haven, remodeled
for its purposes. Organized in 1895, it has in its over two decades had a most
prosperous existence. Naturally, its membership is mostly of Yale men, but it
extends a true Yale hospitality to the graduates of any college who enter its
membership. Its president this year is the Hon. John K. Beach.

New Haven has a group of three clubs whose motive is mostly athletic. The
oldest of them is the Country Club, organized just previous to 1897, and soon
after acquiring grounds and erecting a fine clubhouse on the shores of Lake
Whitney. There it has an excellent golf course, tennis grounds and other ath-
letic facilities. The New Haven Lawn Club exists to meet the needs of those
who wish more central and perhaps milder athletic exercises. Its clubhouse on
Whitney Avenue is an attractive place' for social gatherings of its members and
their guests, and it has an ample equipment of tennis courts. The Race Brook
Country Club, organized in 1910, has a delightful modern elubhbuse near Race
Brook in the upper part of Orange, with golf links and other athletic advantages,
and accommodates especially the growing number of men in West Haven and
western New Haven who seek advantages'of this character.

The Congregational Club, sometimes classed as a church organization, has a
more distinctly social purpose. It was founded in 1883, its objects being, in
the words of its constitution, "to promote the better acquaintance of its members
with each other, and the general interests of Congregationalism and Christianity
in and about New Haven." It accomplishes these objects, and fellowship
besides. Its first president was Rev. John E. Todd, and in its twenty-five
years distinguished clergymen hai'e alternated with prominent laymen, it
being against precedent to elect for a second term. The president for the current
year is the Hon. Robert 0. Eaton.

The successful fraternity has always had a definite purpose, worthy ideals.
Amid the host of such fraternities in New Haven the Trades Union stands
out. It is the inclusive co-ordination of many societies, formed to conserve the
interests of manj' trades and industries. As far back as 1860 there were labor
organizations in New Haven, but for nearly two decades they were no more
than social clubs of men with a common interest. It was in 1877 that the
first union with a vital purpose was formed. There was a union of the cigar
makers, and there was a union of the tailors. That year they wanted to help
the striking cigar makers of New York City, and held a picnic for the purpose.
That was the first sign which indicated an amalgamation of the trades. The
following year the Typographical Union entered their alliance. Gradually the
plan grew to create a central body which should formally co-ordinate these and
all other labor organizations of the city.

It was in 1881 that this took shape in the Council of Trade and. Labor Unions,

282 A MODERN HISTORY OF NEW HAVEN

afterward changed in title to the Trades Council of New Haven. H. H. Lane
was its first president. The organization lias been active and growing in the
thirty-seven years since, and has adopted and held to a high standard. It
has lield many public meetings, at which it has listened to such men as Henry
George, John Swinton, Heber Newton, Prof. William Graham Sumner and Pres-
ident Hadley of Yale. It has founded no less than three daily and two weekly
papers in New Haven, and has assisted several papers outside of the city.

From the beginning it has taken an active interest in public affairs. In
1881, accepting the general theory that municipal ownership of water supply
was best for a city, it urged establishment by the city of its own waterworks.
It also urged the formation of a Bureau of Labor Statistics. It has resisted
from the first all efforts of political interests to control or swing the vote of
its membership in any given direction. It has been discriminatingly loyal to
the interests of fellow workmen in other cities and states. In 1883 it gave
a banquet in honor of the French delegates to the Boston Industrial Exposition,
and since that time has had the friendly interest of the workmen of Paris.

It was in May, 1884, at Hartford, that the Connecticut branch of the
American Federation of Labor was formed, and in this the New Haven Council
took an active part. It aftei-ward had a leading influence in the promotion
of labor organizations throughout the state, and in inducing their affiliation
with the state and national bodies. At present it includes over thirty locals,
representing most of the different crafts and trades, with a total membership
of over 10,000 men and women.

Never was the organization more awake' to its opportunities, nor a greater
factor in the life of the city, than under its present officers and at the present
time. It has been a force, not only in the city but in the state, and has won
the attention and respect of the legislature as a civic rather than a political body.
Within the past year, Patrick F. O'Meara, president of the New Haven Trades
Council, has been appointed a member of the State Board of Arbitration and
Mediation, a notable recognition not only of the man but of the organization.
In New Haven the Trades Council and its forty allied organizations are recog-
nized as making an important factor in the city's civic as well as industrial
affairs, and as tending to exert a strong influence for the welfare of the
community.

In the last year the council has participated in such efforts as the successful
opposition to the widening of Temple Street for the benefit of a few motorists,
for the establishment of a comfort station and for the promotion of the Liberty
loans. In the matter of growth it has had a prosperous year, and especially
have its women's organizations shown vigorous progress. Its present officers are :

President, Patrick F. O'Meara, delegate from the Plumbers and Steamfitters ;
vice president, Frank A. Fitzgerald, of the Hoisting and Portable Engineers;
recording secretary, Joseph J. Reilly, of the Typogi-aphical Union ; financial sec-
retary, August F. Striby, of the Bakers and Confectionery Workers : treasurer,
Daniel B. McKay, of the Street Railway Employes; organizer, Ira M. Ornburn,

AND EASTERN NEW HAVEN COUNTY 283

of the Cigarmakers ; sergeant-at-arms, Francis P. McCabe; board of trustees,
John A. Dunn, Bartholomew Saverty and George Lewis; executive board, Eliza-
beth Dunnigan, E. L. Warden, John J. Landrigan and Thomas Mann.

Within a year the council lias secured headquarters befitting its importance,
and greatly facilitating its work, in the Sagal Block at 215 Meadow Street. As
now furnished, this is one of the finest homes of labor in New England, giving
ample room for business headquarters, meeting halls and social enjoyment.

CHAPTER XXVIII
MERIDEN

COLONIAL ORIGINS AND IlISTOBY, ITS NAMLNG, INCORfORATION OP TOWN AND CITY,
LATER GROWTH AND DEVELOPMENT TO THE CITY OP TODAY

At tlie sharp northeastern point of New Haven County is a tow^^ whose ap-
pearance on the map is most misinforming of its importance in the state and
county. It is the town whose dynamic force is the virile young City of Meriden,
and it owes its place in the state and much of its history to its inclusion of that
city. There are but 16.38 square miles of it altogether. It is irregular in shape
as well as .small in area. Two of its sides are straight, but they follow no com-
pass cardinals. On the north and west it is notched like a circular saw. But
the notches stand for history or striking features of topography. It is a town of
character.

Meriden always stands out in the view from afar. From the heights of New
Haven, of C'armel. of Totoket, there ever loom up in the blue distance the Hang-
ing Hills, with their sharp "Old ]Man of the Mountains," West Peak, the highest
point in New Haven County. Or perhaps Lamentation, lower but longer, first
catches the view. Between them is a pleasant valley. And though the heights
as striking features have their part, it is with the valley that we have to do.

West Peak, the pride of ^Meriden aspirants, is a watchtower worth acliieving.
From its thousand feet above the sea one can spy out the whole country, with
nothing effectual to obstruct the vit-w. To the far west of the county he can pick
out, one by one, the points that form the multi-terminals of the Berkshire and
Litchfield highlands, and further south is that striking range M'hich ends them
all with sentinel West Rock at its point. To the east is Higby. the mount in which
Jliddletown rejoices, just beyond IMeriden's own Mount Lamentation. Southeast
there are Totoket and its associate points, watchtowers for Branford and Guil-
ford. And almost due south the old Giant sleeps, his northern contour not
signally different from that which New Haven gets from the .southward. Beyond,
blue in the sunlight or gray in the storm, is the ever changing sea that reminds
I\Ieriden it is an inland region. But it is an inland region in which to rejoice.

Meriden 's early history is as distinctive as its face. It is young and yet it
IS old. Though cbnsiderably lacking of six score years as an incorporated town,
it has beginnings which make it dare to rise in the presence of communities like
Plymouth and Hartford and New Haven. For the place Meriden and the name

284

AND EASTERN NEW HAVEN COUNTY 285

Meriden had their standing as early as 1660, and have their lines all the way
from tliat day to this. It has been said that Meriden owes its settlement to the
Hartford colony, and in a manner it is true. It has been as vigorously claimed
that it is a part of the New Haven family, and that also is the ease. Prima facie
evidence that the latter is so is found in ileridcn's present inclusion in New
Haven County. But this did not come al)out without some friction of the fam-
iliar sort between Hartford and New Haven.

That purchase which in 1638 Davenport and Eaton made from Moutowese
the son of the sachem of Middletowu, indefinite as it was in its boundaries, seems
to have been conceded to run on the north to about the center of what is now
Meriden. The region between the present northern boundary of Wallingford
and that line, then or somewhat later known as Pilgrims' Harbor, was conceded
to Wallingford from the first. Hut from there northward to the present line
between ]\Ieriden and Berlin Hartford claimed the territory.

This region was not, at first, settled by many people. About 1661 Jonathan
Gilbert, pioneer, came down from northward and acquired, by virtue of purchase
from the Indians, a large tract — practically the whole of the upper part of 'Sleri-
den — which he called Meriden Farm. He and those who followed him, v\hatever
they paid for the land, seem not to have been as fortunate in holding their title
a-s were the Davenport purchasers. There is documentai'y i-ecord that they made
that purchase from the Indians at least three times over, and tradition has it that
some of the land was purchased five times.

In connection with this "Meriden Farm" hangs a tale about the naming of
the place. The reference works loosely state that the city we now know was
named Meriden from the little town of Meriden in Warwickshire, England, and
the trusting let it go at that. But that town has not, either in its character or
its surroundings, any likeness to the ileriden we know or the Meriden which
was two centuries and more ago. None of the Connecticut pilgi'ims, moreover,
had any connection with that town. Mr. Curtis, Meriden 's accurate historian,
has been at considerable pains to look up this question, and the summary of his
conclusions is interesting. He says that, though he finds no evidence to support
the theory that Meriden was named from the town near Coventry, he believes there
was an English place which gave it the name. This was not a town, but was, as was
Meriden in the beginning, a farm. And it was in topographical features very
like to the place of old Jonathan Gilbert's settlement. This was Meriden or
Meriden farm, about three miles south of Dorking, in Surrey County. Only
three miles from it is the parish of Ockley, where Rev. Henry AVhitfield, the
Guilford pioneer, was pastor for many years, and where Rev. John Davenport
and Rev. Thomas Hooker frequently visited. Mr. Curtis 's conclusion, then, is
that some of the early pilgrims who came from or were familiar with that very
locality in England, struck with the similarity of the places, named Jonathan
Gilbert's farm Meriden. Or perhaps he did it himself. As to the siguificanee
of the word, Mr. Curtis, fully aware that an English -name was never given with-
out a reason, digs to the roots of "meri, " meaning pleasant, and "den," meaning

286 A MODERN HISTORY OF NEW HAVEN

vale. And it is a pleasant vale, though its rural look has been ever since most of
us can remember blotted beneath briek blocks and city pavements, and the smoke
of factories joins with its trees to make shade.

So Jonathan Gilbert was the lord of Meriden foi' many years, and his estate
went to his son-in-law Captain Andrew Belcher, and in turn to his son. Governor
Jonathan Belcher. The three generations had to do with the tavern which
Jonathan Gilbert originally established there. For this, be it known, was on
the "Old Colony" turnpike which ran between Hartford and New Haven, and
that was then, as now, one of the most traveled roads in Connecticut. So it was
that i\leriden became one of the familiar spots to all the travelers, at least, of
the colony, for the trip from capital to capital, in those days, was too long to
make without stopping to gain refreshment for man and beast. And the man,
the tavern slates showed, required the more refreshment.

In the course of time, we may assume, the owners of Meriden farm found
that they had more land than they wanted, and neighbors gathered in the vicin-
ity of the Old Colony road. With their names the older historian is more con-
cerned. One should be noted for the place-name he has left, Edward Higby,
who bought the tract which includes Iligby Mountain to the east of the ^Meriden
tract. That height made a natural division between the towns and the counties,
but it also made a sort of connection. There is strife between Meriden and
MiddletowTi to this day, but it is the strife which exists between ambitious
neighbors.

For a good many years the neighbors were few and scattered, this by reason,
seemingly, of the fact that the broad acres attracted wealthy, at least ambitious
farmers. So we find in those early days such a group as Bartholomew Foster,
with 360 acres, John Merriam, with 300 acres, and Nathaniel Roys, with a tract
large enough to be dignified as a "grant." By 1724 settlers nafned Robinson,
Parsons, Aspinwall, Andrews, Rich and Scofel had come to ,ioin the group that
made up the upper, or Jleriden section of the town.

What was to be the center of the city of Meriden still had its distinctive name
"Pilgrims' Harbor." ilr. Curtis thinks this also was imported from the same
English locality which produced Meriden. He finds a "Cold Harbor" in Surrey
County, named so after a cold spring it contained. In Pilgrims' Harbor also
there was a spring. The spring is gone now, and the natural beauty of the old
valley is hidden by city pavements and the like, for this is the center of the city
of Meriden. Harbor brook has met the obscurement of the stream which is set-
tled upon by a city. So have the lowlands along the south branch of the lirook,
called in those days "Dog's ^tisery," been brought to grade and building lots.
What now we know as South Meriden was then Falls Plain. In these localities
such names as Royce, Hall, Curtiss or Curtis, Yale, Hooper, Mix, Atwater and
Hull were among the founders, and these and others still stand as landmarks,
so to speak, in a multitude of modern names which all the world has brought to
Meriden, as it has to most other New England communities.

These parts of the Meriden that was to be did not unite in strength, however,

rcmrti-^y nf H. Walts I,iii.->

11 K'lis .\ii:_\i(iiMAL ]ji;i;Aia. aikkiiH' .\

AND EASTERN NEW HAVEN COUNTY 287

verj' early. But they did fe^l a sort of community spirit as early as 1728, when
by petition of the people in the three villages and the act of the general court
the "North Farmers" lands were set off as a parish of the town of Wallingford.
Thus they gained their religious independence. For their civil they waited un-
til 1806. The town so formed had the same boundaries as the old parish of Meri-
den. The City of IMeridcn, which is confined mainly to the section of old known
as Pilgrims' Harbor, that is, the valley of the brook, was not incorporated until
sixty-one years later. It has, however, had in its half century a record of re-
markable achievement and progress.

Wallingford, the mother, kept ahead of the child — if ileriden may properly
be called the child of Wallingford, for several years. Wallingford and Meriden
had together, six years before the separation, 3,214 people. Four years after
Meriden came to stand by itself, it had 1,249 people — was, in fact as it appeared,
no more than a husky country town. In the next thirty years it had increased
only 631. Not until the census of 1850 did it pass Wallingford. Its progress
after that was rapid, a good index of the importance of, its manufacturing and
general industrial development. It had more than doubled in the next decade,
and by 1870 had become 10,495 — that being the first census after it became a
city. In ten years more it had almost doubled again, in 1890 it had grown to
25,423, in 1900 to 28,695. Its century, or soon after, found it a city of 32,066
people, and it is in 1918 estimated at approximately 35,000.

We have, then, the old town and the new city, whose history is very ancient
and interesting, whose modern development, even, is very recent. It is known far
and wide as the "Silver City." The development of the manufacture of goods
from silver and similar metals gave the city its fame, to be sure, but it should be
noticed that among the thirty-two lines of manufacture and l20 factories which
make the industrial Meriden of 1918, silver is only one and its factories are only
nine. Its manufactures at the present time are feeling the universal inflation,
but Meriden, less than most of the larger cities of Connecticut, is subject to a
present feverish activity which may be expected to die down after the present
flame has passed. Its prosperity is substantial, like its people. Its foundations
as well in manufacturing as in citizenship, religion, education, finance and archi-
tecture, rest on the "seven glad hills."

The town which was formed from the parish of Meriden early in the last
century had its own church and a few scattering schools. The city that now rises
has two Congregational churches instead of the one, and in addition five Baptist
chxxrehes, two Protestant Episcopal, four Methodist Episcopal, seveii Roman
Catholic, three Lutheran, one each of Universalist, Jewish, Peoples' Undenomi-
national and Christian Science. As auxiliaries to these are the City Missionary
society, the Young Men's and Young Women's Christian Associations.

The town of Jleriden has the modest area of 10,473 acres. In the center of
it, a municipality wholly surrounded by country, is the city of Meriden, an ir-
regular octagon, approximately two miles wide and two miles long, composed of
five wards. The Town of Meriden had in 1916 a grand list of $24,582,884, all but

288 A MODERN HISTORY OF NEW HAVEN

about two millions of it being within the city. Without the city limits agriculture
continues to be the principal industry, the growing city serving as a promoter of
prosperous market gardens and dairy farms. The city has a low tax rate, only
eight and three-fourths mills in 1916.

Meriden is a most accessible city. On the main line between Springfield and
New Haven, it has frequent service from the railroad. That rocky and winding
railroad which some years ago wandered from Cromwell across to Waterbury
still has a station in the city, though it is hardly regarded, locally, as a public
service utility. Meriden 's most generally used transportation service, however,
is electric. That part of the old :Meriden and Waterbury line which is between
Meriden and Middletown was some years ago electrified, and is now run a.s a
swift suburban service between the two cities. It swings from Meriden north-
east through AVestfiefd in the town of Middletown, and enters that city over the
tracks of the line to Berlin, which has also been electrified. Southward an electric
line runs to South Meriden, Tracy, Yalesville and Wallingford, and westward
and northward there is a winding line which runs through to New Britain by
way of Milldale, Plantsville, Southington and Plainville, connecting for Bristol,
Lake Compounce, Waterbury and New Haven. There is also a line to Berlin.
The town has postoffices at Meriden, Station A and South Meriden, with ten
sub stations.

]\Ieriden has five public parks, two of which will compare favorably with
those of any city in the state. The planners of the city did not find room for a
"green," but there has been since 1880, near the center, a breathing space of
fifteen acres — City Park. It is a handsome and well kept public square, beauti-
fully shaded and attractive. It has been, moreover, a foundation.

Central in Meriden 's park system is the name of Walter Hubbard. There is
hardly an institution or a good work in Meriden in whose foundation or con-
struction the searcher will fail to find the hand of this man, who for more than
half a century was in a large sense Meriden 's leading citizen. But great as was
his part in the city's industrial foundation, material as was his work in many
other ways, he did no nobler or more lasting service than his part in making this
park passible. So it stands to exalt his name — a thousand acres of commanding
height and delightful woodland and meadov, in numy ways Connecticut's
greatest park.

It was Walter Hubbard, too, who in 1901 purchased the greater part of what
is now Brookside Park, extending for three-quarters of a mile along both sides
of Harbor Brook, named it and gave it to the city. It is a beautiful spot of
.shade and ponds and grass, another of the notable parks of the state.

Bradley Park, in the southwestern part of the city, is another breathing
space, and provides relief from the heat, and the blessing of green grass for a
congested section. Hanover Park in South Meriden has been a commercial en-
terprise, conducted first by the Meriden Street Railway Company, later by the
Connecticut Company. It is an amusement resort of the somewhat common
type, but has many attractions and serves a useful purpose.

AND EASTERN NEW HAVEN COUNTY 289

Merideu had its disastrous fire, oiih- a jear later than Chicago's great con-
flagration. Perhaps, for a city of only 10,000 people, a fire loss of $150,000 was
as serious as Chicago's thousand times that. That was the point at which Meri-
den turned from the volunteer to the paid fire system. The city now has a fire
service composed of one truck and five hose companies, with motorized equip-
ment of the latest type and the most efficient fire fighting agencies. In connection
with this the city has its own very adequate water supply system, whose con-
struction was commenced in 1867. An excellent gravity supply of water is
secured from sources in the Hanging Hills, and to meet the great factory needs
there is a pumping station across the border of Berlin. Meriden now gets its
water from four large reservoirs, so situated as to grade that they sufficiently
supply fire, factory and residence needs for all altitudes in the city.

Jleriden's sewer system is in its character a model for larger cities. At first
it may have seemed a misfortune, now it should be viewed as a blessing, that no
large water course was at hand to give the cheap and easy means which many
cities so negligently and shortsightedly adopt for the disposal of their sewage.
Meriden was compelled to find another way. To be sure, when it commenced its
sewer system in 1892 its problem was a comparatively simple one. The system
employs broad irrigation and filtration, the sewage being, by a considerable feat
of good engineering, siphoned beneath the bed of the Quinnipiac River and con-
veyed to filtration beds on the desert below South Meriden. This plant, con-
structed at an original cost of nearly $150,000, has been extended as the city's
ne«ds have increased, until it has cost more than double that.

These are but significant indications of the way the .young city of Meriden
has met all its physical problems as they have come up. It is a competent, efficient
community, controlled by men of character as well as of substance. It is in
many ways a typical Amei'ican city. In many ways, as we ma.y discover, it is a
decidedly original one.

CHAPTER XXIX
MBRIDEN (Continued)

CHURCHES, SCHOOLS, CIVIC AND SOCIAL PROGRESS — MEN WHO HAVE MADE MERIDEN,
PHYSICIANS, LAWYERS, LEADERS IN LOCAL, STATE AND NATIONAL LIFE

Meriden is lightly reckoned, by some who know it supertieially, a community
where the material is uppermost. Such an opinion diminishes in direct propor-
tion to the care with which the town is studied. As the young town and the
younger city are found, on examination, to have roots in the depths of colonial
history, so the supposed mere industrial community is revealed, with real under-
standing, as an edifice of character and fineness. Sometimes they speak of New
Haven as the city of churches. It would need to add half as many to its present
number to have as many in proportion as Meriden. So, on through the list, it will
be found that in schools, in public institutions, in civic and social advantages,
Meriden is more than able to match, jaroportionately, its older, larger and more
pretentious neighbor and mother community.

Meriden, too, has the ancient church of the fathers. Back in the days when
Center Church was alone in its glory in New Haven, where only here and there
a church of the Pilgrims stood at the oldest points of settlement around the
county and the stat^, the First Church was founded in Meriden. That was in
1729. The five or six hundred people who had by this time settled on the now
divided Meriden and other farms did not so much mind the long journey to
attend church in Wallingford, but they had begun to feel their community im-
portance, and a separate church was an achievement, even if it was a responsi-
bility. They did not, however, take their church as far north as the vicinity of
Jonathan Gilbert's old time tavern, on Meriden farm. They came south to
Pilgrims' Harbor, and built on Meeting House Hill. It seems, moreover, that
they built somewhat before they were fully organized, for the date of the church
is given us as 1729, while the date of the building is set at 1727. There were
fifty-nine persons who formed this body, and began separate wor.ship under the
leadership of Rev, Theopbilus Hall, though there were some temporary preachers
before him.

The churcli liad grown in numbers and strength so that in 1755 they needed
a new building, and this was erected on Broad Street. The third edifice was
built in 18.30, on the same site. It was the noble building which still, after re-

290

Courtesy of H. Wales Lines €>•.

WALT1:R HUBBARD ilEMoKIAf. CHAPEL. MERIDEN

Courtesy of H. Wales Lines 0'»,

FIRST CONGREGATIONAL CHURCH, MERIDEN

AND EASTERN NEW HAVEN COUNTY 291

peated alterations which have not marred its distinguished areliitec-ture, serves
Center Church. For in 1848 there was a division of the people. Prosperity and
population had come to Meriden in the period just before that, and the church
had so increased its membership that it felt the need of a new and larger build-
ing. This was erected, in 1846, on Colony Street, half a mile from the old site.
But something arose which caused a difference of opinion among the members.
Most likely the then familiar question of the abolition of slavery had something
to do with it. At any rate, something like half a hundred members withdrew and
formed the Center Church. The old building on Broad Street was vacant, and
they secured possession of it. There they have remained and worshipped ever
since — they and the new worshippers who have come in the changing process
of seven decades.

The first pastor of the First Church, Rev. Theophilus Hall, remained until
his death in 1767. At the time of the division Rev. George "W. Perkins was pas-
tor, serving the church from 1841 to 1854. It was from 1866 to 1868 that the
brilliant Rev. William H. H. Murray, famous son of old Guilford, more famous
"Adirondack ilurray," was pastor of this church. The Rev. Asher Anderson,
who came to the church in 1890, was in the dozen years of his stay one of the best
known and popular Congregational clergymen of Connecticut. Since 1902 Rev.
Albert J. Lord ha.s been pastor, and the church has advanced to a position of
even more positive religious leadership in the community. It was incorporated
in 1893. Today it has almost a thousand members, and is one of the strongest
churches of its denomination in the state.

It was a notable example of New England church architecture wliich the sep-
arating few who formed Center Church secured iu 1848. It was and is one of
the best specimens in Connecticut of the jnire Doric edifice, its most prominent
rivals in this section being the old North Church on New Haven Green and the
distinguished old Congregational Church in Madison. Set on a hill, preserved
within in harmony with its appearance without, it is an inspiration to worship
and to service.

It was Rev. Ashabel A. Stevens who came to lead the seceders who formed
Centeif Church. He remained with them until 1854. Rev. James C. Wilson was
pastor from 1892 to 1896, being succeeded by Rev. John H. Grant. In 1911
Rev. Thomas B. Powell, previously assistant pastor of Plymouth Church of New
Haven, and later at Livingston, ^Montana, was called. His winning and self
sacrificing leadership has greatly built up the church, which now has a member-
ship of approximately 500. Under previous pastors the people had kept the
church appointments within in harmony with its dignified architecture. The
bare old windows had been replaced with leaded glass of colonial pattern, and
the decorations had been made to conform to the Ionic type of architecture.

;\Ir. Powell found a fine old church building, but his experience had taught
him that the modern church needs something more than an audience room by
which to serve its community. The only approach to chapel or parish house was
the basement, which after the manner of many New England basements had been

292 A MODERN HISTORY OF NEW HAVEN

fitted up as a "lecture room," and had to serve for Sunday School, prayer meet-
ings and all social gatherings. Moreover, the problem of securing a place on
which to erect a parish house, if the church was ready to build one, was difficult.
The building stands ou an extremely steep side hill, so steep that the basement,
and even the rear of the sub-basement, stand out of ground. No available land
for another building was found in the vicinity. Anything in the nature of a
lean-to would spoil the architecture of the church.

So Mr. Powell suddenly decided to make a virtue of the church's difficulty
and necessity. First, he "dug out" the basement. That is, he so excavated at
its sides that, except at the front, it is completely a daylight room. Then he ex-
tended the sub-basement under the whole building. So he had, beneath the
church, what was virtually a parish house of two stories. This was rearranged,
redecorated and in general made into a modern auxiliary church building. At a
cost far beneath that of a separate building, with the maximum of convenience
and without in the least marring the symmetry of its fine structure, the Center
Church had an efficient parish house. In this work, which the pastor inspired
and directed, the people have supported him amply with enthusiasm, hard work
and funds.

The second of the churches of ^Merideu, also founded when the community
was still a part of the town of Wallingford, is the First Baptist, organized in
1786. Adherents of the Baptist creed, scattered all over the town of Wallingford
and the parish of ^leriden, previous to this time worshipped at some convenient
place midway between the two towns. This combined congregation was for some
years led by Rev. John Merriman. His death in 1784 seems to have been in part
the cause of the formation of a separate church. Two years later the Baptist
Church of Meriden was formally organized. It had but twelve members at that
time, however, and they did not feel able to support a pastor, but followed
"elders" for several years. One of the first of these was Samuel ]\liller, who for
some time conducted the worship as a layman, but was ordained a minister in
1806. As the church 's first pastor he served until 1829. It was during his pas-
torate that the church's first building was erected, about 1801. After several
short pastorates, the church called Rev. Harvey JMiller, son of the first pastor,
in 1838. He in turn was succeeded by Rev. D. Heniy Miller, D. D. It was dur-
ing the pastorate of the former that the present fine colonial type church building
was erected. Other pastors of note who have served the church are Rev. W. G.
Fennell, for eight years from 1892. and Rev. Burtt Neville Timbie, the present
pastor.

The next of the Baptist churches to be organized was Main Street in 1861,
an offspring of the First Baptist which has now outgrown the mother. There
was worship in a chapel building until the church became strong enough to erect
a substantial edifice. This it did in 1867-68, the same being its present fine brick
and stone home. This church was called the West ]Meriden Baptist until 1881,
when it adopted the present name. The society was incorporated in 1886. Eight
pastors led the church for the first quarter-century of its existence, from Rev.

Courtesor of H. Wales Lines C".

ST. JOSEPH'S ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH, MERIDEN

ST. ROSK KOMAX CATHOI.IC CHURCH. MERIDEN

ST. STANISLAUS ROilAX CATHOLIC SCHOOL, MERIDEN

AND EASTERN NEW HAVEN COUNTY 293

E. M. Jerome, who .was with it iu its foiuuliiig days, to Rev. Edwin "\V. Husted,
who served it for the years following 1891. The pastor at present is Rev. J. W.
Miisson.

The other Baptist congi-earations in town are the Olive Branch Snnday llis-
sion, of which Warren J. Parker is superintendent, the German Baptist, founded
in 1873, whose pastorate was vacant iu 1917 ; the Swedish Baptist, established
1887, Rev. Alfred Engdahl, pastor; and the Italian Baptist, founded in 1910, of
which Rev. Joachim E. Parella is pastor.

When St. Andi-ews, the oldest Protestant Episcopal Church iu Merideu, was
established, Cheshire had been separated from Wallingford only nine years, and
Jleriden was still a part of that town. Cheshire, from early times a center of
Episcopal faith, was sponsor for the new church, and for .several years furnished
it with leadership at long distance. The church wa.s founded in 1789, but for the
first thirty-five years it had no resident rector, depending on missionary service
from Cheshire and Wallingford. In 1824 the Rev. Ashbel Baldwin settled as
its rector, and in the following sixty years the church had fourteen rectors. In
1885 the Rev. Arthur T. Randall came to the church, and ha.s since remained.
Now in the fourth decade of his service, he is rounding out a remarkable period
and enviable position in the community. The church's house of worship, erected
in 1866, is one of the city's fine examples of architecture.

All Saints' Episcopal, one of the younger churches of the city, was organized
in 1893, and the same year its admirable church building was erected on West
Main Street. Its rector then, and for several years following, was Rev. E.
Sprague Ashley. He was succeeded by Rev. I. Newton Phelps, and the present
rector is Rev. Francis S. Lippitt.

The First Methodist Church of Meriden, whose building is at East ^lain and
Pleasant streets, dates its organization from 1844. It has had a useful and i)ros-
perous career, and some men of power in its pulpit. Some of the notable ones
of the recent period have been Rev. John Rhey Thompson, who was its pastor from
1889 to 1894, Rev. F. B. Stockdale, and the present able leader. Rev. Victor G.
Mills. The South ^leriden Methodist Church, now presided over by Rev. Archi-
liald Treymaine, was founded in 1851, and for several years the two churches
together served all the Methodists in the town and city of ileriden. But in 1885
growth and expansion had made a third seem desirable, and Trinity Church was
formed. Its first pastor was the able Rev. William F. ^larkwick, later pastor of
the St. John Street Church at New Haven, and some of the others have been
Rev. Duane N. Griffin, now of Hartford, Rev. B. S. Pillsbnry and Rev. Frederick
Saunders, the present pastor. The latest of the Methodist churches, which has
been doing a good work since 1890, is the Parker A. ^I. E. Zi(in, of which the
pastor is Rev. Clarence A. Gooding.

The first of what is now a strong galaxy of Roman Catholic churches was St.
Rose's, founded in 1849. It has six associates now. Faithful missionary work
by Father J. Teevins preceded tlie foundation, but ill health obliged him to
forego his right to be its first pastor. Rev. Hugh O'Reilly came to tlic leadership.

294 A MODERN HISTORY OF NEW HAVEN

Faithful and able men since him who have guided the church to valuable service
havi' been Rev. Thomas Quinii and Rev. Paul F. :\IeAlenny, and the present
Ri'v. .lolui Neale. LL. D. This is one of the strong Catholic parishes of Connecti-
cut, doing an excellent work through the church, a convent and parochial school.
Following its leadership, St. Laurent's French Catholic Church, of which Rev. A.
Van Oppen is now pastor, was organized in 1880, the Church of the Holy Angels
in 1887. Of this the first pastor was the Rev. R. F. :\Ioore, and the present is
Rev. L. A. Guinan. The other churches of this faith, in the order of their founda-
tion, are St. JIary's German Catholic, pastor. Rev. Nicholas F. X. Schneider:
St. Joseph's, pastor, Rev. John T. Lynch; St. Stanislaus, Polish, pastor, Rev.
John Lotiis Cepa : Our Lady of :\Iount Carmel, Italian, pastor. Rev. Domenieo

Rieci.

Meriden has three churches of tiie Lutheran faith, the first, St. John's Ger-
man Lutheran, established in 1865. It is today a growing and useful church,
with one of the handsoiuc luiildings of the city, at the corner of Liberty and
Norwood streets. It has been led by several men of marked ability, among them
the Rev. S. F. Glaser, who is at present its pastor. The other churches of this
order are Immanuel German Lutheran, established in 1889, pastor, Rev. Paul
A. Kirsch, and the Swedish Lutheran, founded the following year, whose pastor
is Rev. Olaf Lnndgren.

St. Paul's Universalist Church was organized in 1863, and has done valuable
work under several pastors, of whom the latest is Rev. Thomas H. Saunders.

There is in the city one synagogue of the Jewish faith, founded in 1892. S.
Kennedy is the president of the congregation. For some years there was a
Seventh Day Advent Church, but that has now disappeared, and in its place there
is a People's LTndenominational Church, of w-hieh Rev. C. H. Reimers is the
leader. Meriden has also one Christian Science Church.

Back of these churches, or possibly as mediums through which their [leople
may work, are the City Missionary Society, and the McAU Auxiliary. The
former society has ilrs. George W. Haywood as its president, and the city mis-
sionary is Miss Margaret Burns, ilrs. LeGrand Bevins is president of the
McAll Auxiliary.

ileriden has an equipment of public, semi-public and private schools of
which, regardless of age, any city of its size might be proud. A central high
school of distinguished architecture, constructed some twenty-five years ago at
a cost of $100,000, cares for th« secondary educational needs of city and town,
and seventeen grade and district schools in six districts, together with seven
parochial schools, care for the rest of ileriden's 7,700 children of school age.
In these there is a force of 159 public school teachers. Ten of the public schools
have the full eight grades. In detail, the educational ei|uip7nent of Meriden,
as it stood in the fall of 1917, is as follows:

Superintendent of Schools — David Gibbs.

High School— Principal, Francis L. Bacon: a.ssistant principal. Ivan G.
Smith. Thirtv-two teachers.

CILWECTR'IT SIHOOL FOR JidYS, .MKKIUEX

Courtesy of S. Wales Lines Co.

JIERIUEN HIGH SCHOOL

AND EASTERN NEW HAVEN COUNTY 295

Church Street — Principal, William E. Gardner; seven teachers.

Columbia Street — Principal, Edna il. Harris; five teachers.

East — Viola Lacourciere.

East Grammar — Principal, Frank P. Denning; ten teachers.

East Primary — Principal, Minnie Lallj', two teachers.

Franklin Street — Principal, Au^ista A. Fischer; eight teachers.

Hanover — Principal, Nellie E. Simons; five teachers.

King Street — Principal, Jennie D. Wood ; nine teachers.

Lewis Avenue — Principal, Cornelia A. Comstock; eight teachers.

Liberty Street — Principal, Anne P. Foskett ; six teachers.

North Broad Street — Principal, Jlrs. Nellie F. Russell ; eight teachers.

North Colony Street — Principal, Minnie S. Wiles; seven teachers.

South Broad Street — Principal, Margaret Hickey; eight teachers.

Southeast — Esther P. Gardner.

West Grammar — Principal, H. Eugene Niekless; nine teachers.

West ]\Iain Street — Principal, Anna T. L. Burke ; eight teachers.

Willow Street — Principal, Katherine H. Curran ; four teachers.

Supervisors — Music, G. Frank Goodale; Drawing, Maude E. Simpson; Physi-
cal training, George Baer; Penmanship, W. R. Stalte; Domestic arts, Hazel
Harmon ; Manual arts, Frederick Landers.

The members of the school committee were : Charles F. Rockwell, chairman ;
Dr. Alfred A. Rousseau, secretary'; Burton G. Lawton, treasurer; Harold G.
Hall, clerk; Lewis E. Clark, ilichael F. Kelley, Henry Dryhurst, Oscar L Dessiu,
Frank L. Billard. Edgar J. Perkins, Denis T. O'Brien, Jr., Dr. Cornelius J.
Ryan. Thomas J. Shanley.

This public educational force is supplemented by seven parochial schools, as
follows: Immanuel German Lutheran Saturday School; St. Bridget's Convent
(St. Rose); St. John's Evangelical Lutheran Graded School; St. Joseph's; St.
Laurent's French Catholic: St. IMary's (St. Rose) ; St. Stanislaus.

Tliroughout the state ileriden has a mention it does not altogether enjoy as
the home of the Connecticut School for Boys, which some will still persist in
calling the "Reform School." This, like Middletown's possession of the Con-
necticut Hospital for the Insane, is made a matter of much thoughtless and
meaningless jibe. In the first place Meriden is not at all responsible for the
school in (jnestion, and in the second place it is in these days an institution in
which to have pride, not shame. Since 1851 ileriden has had this institution
for the restraint if necessary, the training in any case, of minors who reach a
point of delinquency or a height of so-called crime which requires imprisonment
imder the law. In recent years the Connecticut Reformatory at Cheshire has
taken over the most difficult classes of these minors, and the school at ileriden
has become more strictly a training school, with a higher character of inmates.
It is at present under the .superintendency of Charles M. Williams. It is a
school for the making of the boys so far as may be useful, well equipped citizens,
and it is largely fulfilling that purpose.

296 A MODERN HISTORY OF NEW HAVEN

Meriden is a city of fraternity and sociability, if one may judge from the
number of social and fraternal organizations. In round numbers there are 155.
These include eight lodges of the Masonic order, eight lodges of Odd Fellows,
nine courts of the Foresters of America, three lodges of the American Order of
United "Workmen, four lodges of the Knights of Pythias, three councils of the
Knights of Columbus, two lodges of the New England Order of Protection, two
conclaves of the Heptasophs, thre« councils of the Royal Arcanum, two lodges
of the Knights of Honor, four divisions of the Ancient Order of Hibernians, four
councils of the Catholic Women's Benevolent League, Meriden lodge of Elks,
Captain John Couch branch of the S. A. R., Ruth Hart and Susan Carrington
chapters of the D. A. R., four temperance societies, Merriam post of the G. A. R.
and its Women's auxiliary, a camp of Sons of Veterans and of Spanish War
Veterans and Eaton Guard Veteran associations. The principal social clubs, of
which there are twelve, are the Colonial Club, the Highland Country Club, the
Franklin Club, the Cosmopolitan Club, the Franco-American and the French-
American Country Club, the Motor Boat, the Rifle and the Wheel clubs.

ilerideu has a live and well e()uipped Young Men's Christian Association,
organized in 1865, with its own building on Colony Street. It serves the com-
munity, through its young men and its old, ideally. A. E. Boynton is president,
and the general secretai-y is V. V. Roseboro. The city also has a well supported
Young Women's Christian Association at 30 Crown Street, now under the di-
rection of Mrs. Emily J. Youngs, who is president and general secretary.

Public library development, slow in many of the older towns of the state,
was not so tardy in Meriden. There was a library as early as 1796, and from
that time on the needs of the community were fairly well met. The public
library, as now known, was started in 1895, and in 1900 Mrs. George R. Curtis
offered to erect a building in memory of her late husband, George Redfield Curtis.
The present fitting and artistic building was completed in 1903, giving ]\Ieriden
a home for a library that now numbers 23,983 volumes. The president of the
board is George H. Wilcox, and the librarian Corinne A. Deshon. It is a monu-
ment to the life of a man and the broad generosity of a woman.

Another Curtis Memorial, a loving tribute to Lemuel J. Curtis, is the Curtis
Home for Children and Old Ladies, a commodious and very comfortably appointed
institution at 380 Crown Street. It is one of ^Meriden's noblest and most useful
institutions.

No one disputes the claim that :\Ieriden has a city hospital unexcelled liy any
New England city of its size. It stands for the united generosity of a large
number of the city's men and women of means. The list of incorporators pays
tribute to some of them : E. J. Doolittle, N. L. Bradley, John C. Byxbee, Robert
H. Curtis, Rev. J. H. Chapiii, George H. Wilcox, Isaac C. Lewis, H. C. Wilcox,
George R. Curtis, John Sutliff, Charles Parker, Seth J. Hall, Eli Ives, Levi E.

ST. .lOSEPHs SCHOOL. :M):Rini".x

ilKRIDKX HOSPnWL. MKRIDKX

AND EASTERN NEW HAVEN COUNTY 297

Coe, Walter Iluliliard, H. Wales Lines, William F. Graham, Abiram Chamber-
lain. It is a roll of honor. That was in 1885. In the years since the hospital,
keeping pace with all needs, has done a great work. The president of the board
now is Edward Miller.

Most of Jleriden's thirty-three physicians have at one time or another parti-
cipated in the work of the hospital. It is a distinguished group. One may safely
put at its head, for none names him but to praise. Dr. Jere D. Eggh'ston, for
approaching forty years not only a dependable physician in Meriden, but very
much in the city's life in every way. Dr. Edward T. Hradstreet, one of the dis-
tinguished family of Thomaston Bradstreets, graduate of Yale and Columbia,
has also for nearly four decades been an honored citizen of ^Meriden, whose work
for the community has been even broader than the saving service of the physi-
cian. He is a large participant in the work of Gaylord Farm, has since 1901
been the town's medical examiner, and is in every way a thoroughly useful force
in the life of the community. Dr. Edward AV. Smith and Dr. Elbridge W. Pierce
are men of long practice and high standing in the town. Dr. Frederick P.
Griswold, of Connecticut birth, JIayflower descent and eminence in his jirofes-
sion, joined by marriage with one of the old families of Madison, is an honored
member of a fine group. One of the younger men in ]\Ieriden and in his profes-
sion is Dr. Harold A. Meeks, whom Connecticut owes to New Jersey, of an old
Knickerbocker family, is making a great place for himself in tlie esteem of
Meriden. And there is Dr. Joseph A. Cooke, born in New Haven, since 1899
a resident of ^Meriden, who is rounding out a period of useful service in his
pi'ofession in the position of chief magistrate of the city.

Jleriden has one of the state's sanatoria for the treatment of tuberculosis.
Formerly it wa.s a private sanatorium, known as Undercliffe, but under the super-
vision of the commission it is merely the Connecticut State Sanatorium. Meriden
has for some years, however, had an independent interest in the combat with tliis
disease, and did some excellent work at Undercliffe, backetl by local supjiort,
before the state took over the institution.

Practicing at long distance in all but the minor coiu'ts. ilerideirs group of
lawyers — there are about nineteen of them now — have won for themselves honor
in the New Haven County Bar Association. Some of them are veterans like
George A. Pay, long in practice in Meriden, state senator in 1871, for some years a
partner at New Haven with Judge William L. Bennett, now of the Superior
Court, whose work here ended a few years ago. Or Iiis brother. Prank S. Pay,
who has been judge of the police and city courts and city attorney, and in various
other ways honored in Meriden. James P. Piatt, who has achieved the diflieult
task of making himself a high place on his own account despite the competition
of a distingni.shed father, is no less an honored member of the Aleriden group
since he was promoted to the Ignited States District Court. Albert R. Chamber-
lain, rising in the law, is rising in the comnuniity as well, and bids fair to be as
much a factor in the life of ]Meriden as was his father, (iovernor Chamlierlain.

Patrick T. O'Brien, son of New Britain, trained under Judge Hennev of

298

A MODERN HISTORY OP NEW HAVEN

Ilai'tford, has become recognized as one of the ablest of the attorneys of Meriden
ill the recent period. Of him it has been said that "he is faithful to his clients,
fair to his opponents and honest to tlie court." It is a good picture of him and
of an ideal lawyer. Besides that he is prominent in the highest fraternal circles
and a hard worker for his city's welfare. There are George L. King, who has
been prosecuting agent for the county, and Henry T. King, able lawyer and park
commissioner, both of them prominent in legal circles. Willnir F. Davis, for
successive terms corporation counsel of Meriden, and prominent still as a counsel
for some of the city's large corporations, is among ^I<?riden's ablest older law-
yers. Judge John Q. Thayer, though his life work has closed, has been a promi-
nent factor in the city's life in the present period, being probate .judge for
almost two score years following 1893.

Of those whose service political lias liecn at home Meriden has some dis-
tinguished examples. Edgar J. Doolittle, for five terms mayor, a member of the
state senate, since a bank director, always prominent in public work, has been
one of the best older examples. Another was Benjamin Page, mayor in 1890
and 1891. These are a few of a long list, including such mayors as Lines,
Reilly, Danaher and Cooke.

The amount of business done in Meriden requires a number of banks large
in proportion to the city's size. Hence we are not surprised to find seven sub-
stantial l)anking institutions — three national banks, two trust companies and
two savings banks. The Meriden National Bank, chartered in 1833 and national-
ized in 1855, has capital of ,'{(200,000 and its president is Herman Hess. The
Home National has $400,000 capital and -I^ITS.OOO surplus. It was founded in
1855 and nationalized in 1865. Edgar J. Doolittle is its president. The First
National was chartered in 1863, and has capital of .i<200,000 and surplus of
$300,000. Charles L. Rockwell is its president, as he also is of the .Meriden Trust
& Safe Deposit Company, with a cajiital and surplus of $75,000, and of the City
Savings Bank, which has deposits of $4,957,506. The Puritan Tnist Company,
with a capital of $54,300, has C. E. Schunack for its president. The Meriden
Savings Bank has been in existence since 1851, and has deposits of $8,542,474.
Its president is Eugene A. Hall.

Meriden has had the common experience with newspapers which have sprung
up early like the grass, and withered and blown away, but some notably fit
ones have survived. The older of these is the ^Morning Record, for it is the
combination which was made in 1899 of the ^leriden Republican, founded in
1860, and the Meriden Record. ^Yillialll A. Kelsey. the man behind the Kelsey
printing press concern, has been a power in its publication, and Thomas H.
"Warnock is at present its editor. The .Meriden .lonrnal. which with growing
acceptance fills the ileriden evening field, was started in 1886, and the men who
laid its corner stones were Francis Atwater, Lew Allen, Frank E. Sands and
Thomas L. Reilly. The first has retired from active publication work, the sec-
ond rests from his earthly labors, Thomas L. Reilly has chosen the glittering
path of politics and Mr. Sands remains the gatherer of the harvest of his and

AND EASTERN NEW HAVEN COUNTY 299

their hard work. lie has proved in many ways that he is equal to the task of
i-uiuiing a high elass publishing business and getting out a good newspaper. He
is a thoroughbred publisher and editor, a historian of aceiiracy and information,
and a citizen who believes in JMeriden and helps greatly to make the town worth
while.

The unfolding story of Jleriden has paid in the eloquent record of deeds the
highest tribute that could be paid to some of the men who have made the town.
They are only a few out of many. There lias been a notable company of them in
the past three decades, men who have honored their fine old New England com-
munity by exalting the qualities that uiake New England great in the capitals
of their state and nation, as well as at home. The life and work of one of these
men have centered in Meriden, though his duties have often carried him far
afield. One could not name three of the men who have made Meriden in the
last quarter-century and fairly leave him out. George H. Wilcox, son of the
senior of the founders of the silver industry, son of ^Meriden, son of Yale, is
nevertheless a man who has made himself. There is a romance, even if it is a
romance of hard work, in his rise in a quarter of a century from office boy in
his father's manufactory to president of the fifteen-million-dollar silver trust.
He has done that — by keeping everlastingly at it. But there is a nobler romance
in the way he ha.s served his town. Wilcox, Hubbard, ililler — it is a great tri-
umvirate. But with it must needs be ranked a dozen if not a score more of those
who. biding at home, have made the towni.

Meriden, wreathing his tomb, cordiall.y gives first honors of statesmanship
to her ''grand old man" at Washington, Senator Orville 11. Piatt. His work and
his rank make a tale familiar but never old. He was one of the best examples in
the closing days of the last century at Washington of the men who by character
make a small state great in the national gathering.

It is not through Senator Piatt alone that Meriden ha.s been represented at
Washington. There is cordial appreciation from all for the man who rose from
humble newspaper ranks to represent this district in the lower house and made
a clean record there. Thomas L. Roilly. trusted citizen of Jleriden, as his fellows
proved by electing him mayor, made good, as ever, in the greater task.

And Jleriden has had a governor in this period. It was as a foremost citizen
of his town, where he stood at the head of one of its sound banks, that Abiram
Chamberlain went to the governor's chair at Hartford. He won and held the
honor of the state as well as he had held that of his own town, and cainc hack to
still gi-eater honors. His work is done, but his inspiration lasts.

There is a w-oman of national fame who has carried Meriden with her to the
temple. Ella Wlieeler Wilcox, though not ^leriden liorn, was so long associated
with the community that it shares in her fame. It is not ashamed of the part-
nership, for she has written down many W'ords that have the germ of immortality.

One citizen with a service of a different sort has earned tlie highest gratitude.
George ]\Iunson Curtis, son of the George R. Curtis whose memorial the public
library is. with the best of old Connecticut blood in his veins and true apprecia-

300 A MODEKN HISTORY OV NEW HAVEN

tion of tnulition and record, lias earned unending g:i-atitude by his services as
Meriden's historian. His "Century of Meriden" is one of the most faithful and
painstaking records which a citizen ever preserved for his loved city, and to it
the writer of this imperfect sketch of Meriden today cheerfully acknowledges
great indebtedness.

Greatest of all the sons who have served ^leriden are some, perhaps, whose
story is yet to he told, who, on the far fields of battle for democracy, are offer-
ing their lives, as have sons of Meriden in all our wars, for the cause of the
right and true. The daily growing record of them cannot be set down here, nor
of the many others, men and wduicn, who arc serving the war cause in number-
less ways. They arc the evolution of the militan- comjjanies which grew up
with Jleriden in its progi-ess. Companies I and L of the Second Regiment. They
had in their ranks some of the be.st of ileriden's young men. They went with
the Second Regiment to Nogales. They entered the maelstrom of war with the
rest in 1917. Later that year they vanished into the mist of the west-Euroi)eau
front, Company L commanded by a Meriden man. Captain Frank H. ]VIeGar,
and with two Meriden lieutenants, Samuel A. Tyler and Henry A. Riecke. Com-
pany I went out under Captain "William H. Whitney of Kensington, but two of
its lieutenants were from ^leriden. John R. Feazel and Herman St. J. Holdt.

CHAPTER XXX
MERIDEN (Concluded)

IXTERESTING GROWTH AND PRESENT MANUFACTURING GREATNESS OP THE "SILVER
CITY," A CHARACTERISTIC YANKEE MANUFACTURING TOWN

It would be difficult to find in the state of Connecticut a town so small or re-
mote that it lacked, even from its earliest years, a trace of the practical working
out of Yankee ingenuity. Meriden was no exception. Sodom Brook and Harbor
Brook turned their water wheels in the early days, no doubt. As far back as the
time when ^leriden got its practical independence as a separate parish there was
some activity of this sort, though it has for the most part escaped the record.
It was well toward the end of the eighteenth century that Samuel Yale coin-
nienced to make cut nails. ])artly by machine and partly by hand, each being
separately headed by dint of heat and hammer. It seems to have been as an out-
growth of this that there wa.s a small factory in 1794 for the making of pewter
buttons, and afterward for the production of other small articles of metal.

These were but straws to indicate the direction of the Meriden inclination,
prophecies of what was to be. We have had conclusive modern demonstration
that a manufacturing community is not made without either water or railroad
communication, and Meriden in those days had neither. The great canal that
was to make some part of Connecticut's fortune passed it five miles to the west-
ward. The railroad did not come until 1840. Then Meriden manufacturing,
whose substantial foundations were already laid, took a remarkable spurt. It
must have been as early as 1820 that Meriden 's manufacturing career really
commenced. A considerable ciuantit}- of goods was produced, and toted by
wagon to New Haven, or possibly to the canal, to be carried to market by water.
Despite handicaps, the manufacturing of IMeriden must have had a substantial
start by the time the railroad came, for hardly in less than ten years should a
town of 2,500 people have developed the thirty-five manufacturing establish-
ments and secured the 590 workers which the town had in 1849.

Looking back now, that seems a small beginning. The census of 1910 — and
the city and towni have hardly stood still since that time — reported that the year
liefore there were 120 manufactories in Meriden, with a total of 7,845 employes.
These were backed by a capital of $17,645,000. paid annual wages and salaries of
$5,429,000, and produced goods valued at .$16,317,000. These are the last official
figures available, but on the basis of the increase in the previous decade, it would

301

302 A MODERN HISTORY OF NEW HAVEN

be conservative to place the present number of Meriden's factor.y workers at
9,000 and its value of manufactured product at exceeding $20,000,000 a year.
This showing, it must be remembered, is for a town of not over 35,000 people.
And though ^Merideu participates in some measure in the manufacturing intensity
which the demand for war materials has created, it does so less in proportion to
its size than most larger cities.

Outside of iMcriden, the popular impression is that little but silverware, or
••white metal" goods, is made there, ileriden does not especially object to the
nirknaiiie '•Silver City." It earned it. It inherited the silver business. So it
came about that in the era of great combinations of trade (or in restraint of trade,
as j'ou please) which the turn of the century knew, it was in ]\Ieriden that the
International Silver Company found it desirable to establish its headquarters,
and in and near :\Ieriden that it found the majority of its important branches.
It was not really silverware, but •'Britannia," that made Meriden famous. There
was no trace of silver in the original Britannia metal, whose manufacture Asha-
bel Griswold started in the upper part of Meriden in 1804, hut it led, through
the later invention of electro plating, to the development of modern j)lated ware
as we know it. Out of the Griswold enterprise, really the original ^leriden manu-
facturing venture of importance, grew a little less than half a century later the
Meriden Britannia Company, which still fifty years later was merged in the
International Silver Company. Over a century ago it was the town's most impor-
tant industry. Today, employing between 3,000 and -t.OOO persons, it still leads.

With that industry is inseparably connected the name of AVilcox, as indeed
that name is associated with Meriden progress in many ways. Next to I. C.
Lewis, who was president of the original metal industry when it was first incor-
porated, were the brothers Horace C. and D. C. Wilcox, the former being secre-
tary and treasurer. His son, George H. Wilcox, today the president of the Inter-
national Silver Company, is the evidence that the control of the industry has
never gone out of Meriden's hand. In fact, ileriden is and has been, by virtue
of the mastery of this foremost citizen of the town, the center of the great silver
manufacturing industry, the largest of its line in the world, with an invested
capital of .$20,000,000, with fifteen factories in the United States and an interest
in several more in other countries.

Not all the silver shaped in ileriden is handli^d in this factory, however.
There are nine other plants in the town. Five of them are branches of the Inter-
national Silver Company, and most of them were in existence when the combina-
tion was formed. Of these the oldest and most important is the already mcTi-
tioned Meriden Britannia Company, now "Factory E," at 48 State Street. The
next in age, and fir.st in importance as a maker of silver plate, went into the trust
as William Rogers :\Ianufacturing Company, that being the name of a factory
which was brought down from Hartford. The Meriden name was C. Rogers and
Brothers, and its product was so famous that it is still sold under the Rogers
name, though it is now Factor^' H of the combination. Then there is the Barbour
Silver Company on Colony Street, Factory A. The Forbes Silver Company is

AND EASTERN NEW HAVEN COUNTY 303

a department of Factory E, and the "VVileox Silver Plate Company is Factory N.
These make, with the factories in AValliogford, not only the head but three-
fifths of the body of the great American silver trust. Two more of the constitu-
ent companies are in Waterbury, only twelve miles away. This is what makes
Meriden the "Silver City."

Next to silver perhaps the factors which make ^leriden most widely famous
are the "Miller lamp" and the "Parker gun." A great part of the world still
uses the classic wick to feed its flame, and the lamps which run by oil outnumber
far the jets of gas or the electric glows. The Edward Miller Company, which
today makes the Miller lamp in one of Meriden 's largest factories, emijloyiug
Jiearly a thousand people, traces its beginnings to 1844, when the business had
its first modest start. Incorporated in 1866, the company flourishes by the mak-
ing of lamps, lanterns and chandeliers of all sorts, as well as bra.ss kettles, tinners'
hardware and allied articles. Edward Miller, eminent citizen of Meriden, is
still the president of the concern.

The manufacture of guns is but a part of the business of Parker Brothers,
but their excellent firearm, as a sporting gun, is justly and widely known. Their
jilant, while smaller in apparent size than some of the city's well known indus-
tries, employs largely skilled mechanics, and has a standing important out of
proportion to its size.

There are other things with the Parker name which play an important part
in the city's industry. For there is a Parker lamp that has its fame as well as
the Miller, and there is a Parker clock. The former is made by the Charles
Parker Company, of which Charles Parker is president, and the latter by the
Parker Clock Company, which gets its name from the same Charles Parker, its
founder. Its president is W. H. Lyon.

]\Ieriden's light can never be hidden under a bushel. Another reason why i«
rhe Bradley & Hubbard Manufacturing Company, another outgrowth of that
group of veteran industries that were laying the foundations before the days of
1he railroad. Its incorporation was in 18.52, as Bradley, Hatch & Companj'.
There were the names of the men who later led it into its great prosperity,
William L. and Nathaniel Bradley. Walter Hubbard, a name which stands for
great and good deeds in ileriden, came into the firm later. The Bradley interests
still predominate, and are represented by N. L. Bradley, the present head. This
concern, second as an employer of citizens of Meriden, now with a capital stock
of $950,000 and not far from 2,000 employes, makes a wide variety of lamps, gas
and electric fixtures, and its product has a great fame.

There is a different and more general line of silver manufacture which is
represented in Meriden by four important concerns, who make silver plated nov-
elties, jewelry of silver, granite and plated table ware. They are ^Manning,
Bowman & Company, A. II. Jones & Company, Wilbui- B. HhII and the Frank
Tilling Silver Company.

The third product for which Meriden has an international rejiufafion is cut-
lery. A generation ago, if the Coiniecticnt boy — as Connecticut boys always did

304 A JIODERN HISTORY OF NEW HAVEN

looked at the heel of his jackkuife blade to see where it was made, the chances

were about ten to one that he found the name of a Meriden concern. The Meri-
den Cutlery Company has been making table and pocket cutlery at South .Meriden
since 1855. Formerly its factorj- was run entirely by water power. It has one
of the finest equipments for this line of work, and produces now, as it did half a
centun- ago, goods whose name is their guarantee. The concern employs about
300 people. H. A. Curtis is its president, and treasurer of its $400,000 cap-
ital. The other cutlery concern, equally prominent, is the Miller Brothers Cut-
lery Company, which for almost half a century — it was organized in 1870 — has
been doing its share to make Meriden famous. Its line was general for many
years. Its specialties today are steel ink erasers and steel pens. It also employs
upward of 300 persons. Apparently it is now a Rockwell concern, for C. L.
Rockwell is president and C. F. Rockwell treasurer and general manager.

Once again, .Meriden is widely known through its product of musical instru-
ments. In the days when music depended somewhat less on mechanical perform-
ance, when the cabinet organ was found in every home that did not have a piano,
"Wilcox & AVhitc," was a household name. W. H. White, the pioneer organ
builder, was the mechanical man behind it, and the Wilcox was the even moi'e sub-
stantial Horace C. Wilcox of the silver industry. Since 1877 it has made goods as
stei-ling as their silver, the cabinet organ as long as it was demanded, then the
"pneumatic symphony" or self playing organ, still later the "Angelus. " This is
a playing attachment for any piano, now developed to a high degi'ee of accuracy
and shading capability. It has a capital stock of $450,000, and employs upwards
of 250 people. The Aeolian Company was organized in 1887, when the demand
for mechanically pla.yed musical instruments began to be positively manifested.
It makes player pianos of a high grade, and its capital stock of $2,000,000 may
indicate something of its place of importance in the instrument making world.
It emplo.vs about 500 people. The heads of the company are H. B. Tremaine,
president, and Frederick L. Wood, superintendent of the construction of music
rolls.

Meriden has a large manufacture of electric fittings and appliances. Besides
the Bradley & Ilulibard Company, whose line runs now largely to electric fixtures,
there are the Connecticut Electric Equipment Company and the Connecticut
Telephone and Equipment Company, with a quarter of a million capital, mak-
ing telephones, telephone specialties and electric goods in general. The Handel
Company, with a capital of $100,000, has since 1903 been making electric light
fixtures. It employs about 150 persons. Henry B. Todd is a producer of X-ray
machines and appliances.

In the making of cut glass Meriden has seven concerns — all but one of the
industries of this sort in the state. In addition to the International Silver
Company, there is the J. D. Bergan Company, which James D. Bergan and oth-
ers organized in 1891, erecting a four-story factory on Miller Street. This
concern is one of the leadere in the manufacture. The other concerns are the
Meriden Cut Glass Company of Pratt Street, now a branch of the International

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AND EASTERN NEW HAVEN COUNTY 305

Silver Company as Factory T, the Silver City Cut Glass Company of Hicks
Street, Hall & Callahan of Webst^- Street, James J. Niland of ililler
Street and C. F. Monroe Company of West Main Street, which has an
important and unusual factory now employing over 200 people. With these
are more or less allied four substantial jewelry-making concerns. Probably the
leader of these is the E. A. Bliss Company, started in 1882 and incorporated in
1890, which employs over 100 persons in the making of artistic jewelry of con-
siderable variety. Armstrong Brothers have a good sized plant on Vine Street,
and the others are the Amei'ican Jewelry Manufacturing Company on Pratt
Street and C. G. Armstrong on South Vine.

Thougli this is not reckoned a leader among the city's industries, Merideu
has nine hardware making plants, the largest of which is Foster, Merriam &
Company, dating back to 1866. This concern, now capitalized at .'t;240,000,
employs nearly 500 people. It makes a general line of cabinet hardware, and
has a wide reputation for first class product, ileriden is also a prominent pro-
ducer of casket hardware, tlie leader of that at present being the International
Casket Hardware Company, capitalized at siil00,000 and employing over 100
men. The others are the Charles Parker Company, already mentioned, the Bird-
sey & Raven Company on East ilain Street, the Browne & Dowd Company,
general specialties, the M. B. Schenk Company, casters, and the F. J. Wallace
Company on Britannia Street. This last concern is also prominent as a maker
of saddlery.

The variety of the others is almost endless, and among them are not a few
concerns prominent either because of their long establishment or because of
the conspicuous excellence of their product. Here is the Connecticut Shock
Absorber Company, a concern founded as recently as 1911, making a standard
automoliile fitting, with a capital of .$110,000. Ernest C. Wilcox is president.
Griswold, Richmond & Glock Company is an old Meriden concern which makes
cornices. The Lane Construction Company, John S. Lane & Son, cjuarrymen
and the Lane Quarry Company, three allied concerns, employ together a con-
siderable number of people, and form an important portion of Meriden 's indus-
tries. The Lyon & Billard Company is an old concern supplying coal and build-
ers' materials. The Meriden Iron & Brass Company, the Meriden ilachine Tool
Company and the ^Meriden Press & Drop Company are a group of standard con-
cerns contributing materially to the general prosperity. A younger firm than
the makers of the Parker gun is tlie Jleriden Firearms Company, which keeps
half a thousand employes busy in the making of standard giins and small arms.
It was organized in 1905, by machinist.s from Hopkinton, Massachusetts, who
took over the old plant of the JMeriden Malleable Iron Company, closed since
1895. It is now controlled by Sears, Roebuck & Company of Chicago, and
inakes goods worthy to be ranked with the more famoiis Parker gun.

ileriden has long been marked as a center of the printing and publishing
trade, and well advertised as a producer of printing presses. Aside from its
newspaper plants, whi<-h have elsewhere been mentioned, it has the Curtiss-Way

306 A MODEKN HISTORY OF NEW HAVEN

Company, a large concern which was established in 1902, and employs nearly
150 persons in the production of calendars, calendar pads and similar special-
ties. The Meriden Gravure Company, established since 1888, has a wide repu-
tation for the production of high class photogravure and all types of modern
reproduction and printing work. ^Meriden has one printing press manufactory,
incorporated in 1905, but considerably older than that in its beginnings. The
Kelsey Press Company, started in 1872, now capitalized at .$75,000, makes hand
and small power presses in large quantities, and its product is widely and well
known. William A. Kelsey is at its head.

The list of industries in ^leriden could not more fittingly be rounded out
than by mention of a firm whose work stands in almost every town of Connecti-
cut, and in many towns beyond, in every ease a truly living monument to the
ability, industry and genius of a man whom Meriden can never honor too gen-
erously. H. Wales Lines is not a native of Meriden, but the finest of the blood
of old Connecticut stock is in his veins, and he did not immigrate from farther
away than Naugatuck. ^Moreover, he came to Meriden when he was only twenty-
six, and he has stood by the town ever since. What he has been to Meriden in
the over half a century since is written in the political, the civic, the financial,
the industrial and the constructive history of the town. When he came, a rap-
idly developing manufacturing community was just expanding to the status
of a city. It had the virile, aggressive, progressive swing which strongly
appealed to his positive spirit. He threw himself with all his vigor into its life.
He has been a part of it ever since — is still, despite the slowing weight of four
score years. In a very broad sense he has been a constructor. He was a mason
at the start, and the works of brick and stone which he and his firm ha\e budded
stand in almost every city and many of the towns of the stat« he loves, and in
cities of at least four other states, while Meriden shows in numerous examples
of its best public and private architecture his industry and skill. These stand,
and such is the character of their construction that for ages they will stand,
memorials to a very remarkable man.

The finest of Revolutionary American ancestry was Mr. Lines 's heritage, and
in his busy life he has found time to pay large tribute to the traditions of New
England and the nation. He is a member of many patriotic societies, and his
spirit of brotherhood is evidenced in his fraternity and club affiliations, which
are numerous. He is a thirty-third degree Mason. How he has been for three
terms mayor of Meriden, how he was member of the Legislature, delegate to
the Constitutional Convention of 1902 and candidate for Congress, how he has
been a leader in many a work for the betterment of Meriden and his state —
these and many other features of his abundant career are written on more
enduring pages than those of any history.

The firm which Mr. Lines has founded is today an institution in Meriden,
as potent for the establishment of the town in American honor as the varied
products which Jleriden sends over the world. It was Perkins & Lines when it
was founded in 1864, and in 1878 the H. Wales Lines Company was formed.

AND EASTERN NEW HAVEN COUNTY 307

being incorporated ten years later. Henry E. Fairchild, whom Mr. Lines
associated witli him in 1878, remains as a prominent member, now vice presi-
dent. Outside of its numerous structures in Meriden, one of the best examples
of the firm's work is the remarkable gi'oup in Naugatuck for which the late J. H.
Whittemore was responsible. It must always be the pride of this firm that it
had a large hand in the building of what, shaped by world-famous architects,
competent judges have declared one of the finest groups of buildings in America.
Their like as to construction is all over Connecticut, on the campuses of Yale
and Princeton Universities, at Philadelphia, in New York City, at Mount Her-
mon, Massachusetts. The Lines Conipanj''s most widely known building work,
possibly, was a model of fine old colonial architecture constructed as the Con-
necticut Building at the St. Louis Exposition in 1904, into which ^h\ Lines must
have builded the best of his finely appreciative soul.

CHAPTER XXXI
ORANGE

KVOI.ITION OP THE COLONIAL PARISH OP NORTH MILPORD INTO THE TOWN OF ORANGE,
AND THE CHARACTER OF A RARE FARMING COMMI'NITV

There probtilily is not in all Couneetieut a town of stranger contrasts than
is Orange as it stands today. The well-steered crow, tlyiug between Connecti-
cut's two largest cites, would pass, as he left New Haven, first over an urban
district scarcely distinguishalile in nature from the Elm City itself. Then he
would sight a modern amusement resort not rivalled in size or money-catching
vanities this side of Coney Island. Then he would pass over some of the most
delightful rolling farm district of the state, with widely scattered houses and
winding roads. Then he would cross, just after leaving Orange, the state's
noblest river next to the Connecticut, lying amid scenery which even that pic-
turesque valley can hardly rival.

The town stretches from West River and the harlior due west to the Ilousa-
tonic. For the most part its surface is gently undulating country. There is a
point in the northwest corner locally known as Grassy Hill, and a longer range
south of it, running over into "Milford, down on the maps as "George's Cellar
Hill." Wepawaug River, once a stream esteemed for its water power, flow.s
down from the Woodbridge hills, and Race brook comes to .ioin it from the same
direction. Indian River and Oyster River, streams that nobody outside of New
England would deign to call moi'c than creeks, start in Orange. At the north
arc the ilaltby lakes. The Wepawaug, along with these, now finds its greatest
utility in serving West Haven with water. And on the western side, a part of
the town viewed comparatively little, it .seems, by man, there is the Housatonic,
a stream in wliii-h any town might rejoice. From West River to the Housatonic
is no more than eight miles. From tiie Woodliridge line to Oyster River Point
it is about six.

Nature has done much for Orange; man has tried to do more. Three rail-
road lines cross its territory. The main line to New York, now taking the width
of four tracks, was the first. This did little for Orange except to afford it a
station at West Haven, where once on a time the trains used to stop. Then the
Derby line meandered across in a wavy curve, taking in the stations of Ailing-
town or West Haven, Tyler City and Orange Center. And the Naugatuek line
slides down from Derby, hugging the east shore of the river, managing to avoid

AND EASTERN NEW HAVEN COUNTY 309

making any stop in Orange. Last of all came the trolley, skirting the northern
edge of the town, mostly using it as a convenient course to get from Derby to
New Haven.

There was a "North Milford" within a score of years after New Haven was
founded. There was a "West Haven" as soon as the settlers of Quinnipiac
began to overflow to the westward. But there was no Orange until 1822. Tn
that year tlie town was incorporated, and in some tardy sense of gratitude to
William, Prince of Orange, for his generosity to Connecticut in the matter of
a charter, it was named after him. The settlers could hardly have felt any
such gratitude to a certain Englishman who came later than William of Orange,
one General Garth, though there seems good reason to believe that he put
Orange on the map, as it were. Anyway, he discovered Savin Rock, for he
landed there on .July 5, 1779, proceeding thence to New Haven without any more
delay than was caused him by the "Defenders" at the AUingtown gates. One
who enters New Haven by that route now has startling reminder of that event,
in the militant Defenders' Monument.

Up to the time of its incorporation as a town, the center of Orange, as we
now know it, had continued to be called North Milford, as it was, indeed, in
origin. That section had been surveyed in 1687, but was settled somewhat later
than 1700. There are a few scattering names of pioneers. One of them was
Richard Bryan, who gave the name of Bryan's Farms to a certain locality.
There was Jonathan Rogers, with his sons Jonathan T. and Jonah. There were
Benjamin Clark and his sons ; also Jonathan Treat, ilatthew Woodruff came
later, and there are his prominent descendants. Still later was S. T. Oviatt,
who kept the store, and when the railroad came was its first station agent, com-
bining that with the office of po.stmaster.

In the outcome of settlement, we have the widely divided Orange of today.
The effort to make the part called Orange the main part has never been a suc-
cess. The center of population was West Haven at the first; it is more than
ever so now. The center of town government is at West Haven. Orange, as the
place of the railroad station and postofSce of that name, is only a minor part
of the town. But for purposes of historical precedence, and for even better
reasons, we may consider Orange first in the order.

Orange — or North ^Milford, as it was — had scattered farms from near the
beginning of the eighteenth century. It had become quite a village, we may
suppose, by the beginning of the next. It ha.s grown with becoming deliberation
ever since. Now and then a city resident sees a place that takes his eye, and
buys to build. Now and then an old resident, who had wandered to the city,
comes back. Its whole eastern part, especially its upper shore front, is taken
up by growing West Haven and ingi'owing Savin Rock. AUingtown, an over-
flow of New Haven, gradually works westward. But there is wide room for this
western movement, and the major portion of the territory of Orange is yet the
unspoiled country — broad acres, favorable for the farmer.

Time was when somebody had a drenni (if building a metropolis, or some-

310 A MODERN HISTORY OF NEW HAVEN

thing of the sort, in the very heart of the town. It was in 1887 that- the factory
of the Peerless Buttonhole Attacluneut Company was established in what is
known as Tyler City. A railroad station was soon after built, whose traces
still remain as a flag station. A large school building was erected. Surely here
were the "makin's" of a city. It was a short-lived dream. Within eight years
the factory had vanished, and the school building was used as a county home.
The rare trains on the New Haven-Derby line still stop, on request, at the old
station. Otherwise, Tyler City might be forgotten.

Earlier than that, Orange had a mining boom. There is hardly a town in
Connecticut which does not show sufficient traces of some supposedly precious
stone or mineral to create an excitement, if properly exploited. In Orange it
was, supposedly, silver and copper. A New York company developed a copper
mine in the western part of the town. There was a nine days' furore, but the
copper turned out as all other copper mined in Connecticut has done. It was
real, but it was in microscopic quantities and was mined at extravagant cost.

Some years ago there was some desultory attempt to utilize the Wepawaug,
the enterprising creek that tlows through the center of the town, for manufactur-
ing purposes. At one time the AUings had a woolen mill somewhere up the
stream. But long ago that was given up, and the Wepawaug is mainly utilized
as a feeder for city water supply. At AUingtown, in a new factory built within
the past three years, the American Mills Company, which owns what was the
New Haven Web Factory at Centerville, has a branch textile mill. Aside from
that, the Orange manufacturing district is now confined to West Haven, which
has a number of important industries.

The one "country church" of Orange, the Congregational, dates back to the
North Milford days of 1791, thirty years before the incorporation of the town.
As Bryan's Farms the center seems to have been best known when the people
made the first beginnings of a church there. They had become tired of driving
five miles to clnu'ch in ililford, and moreover, they wanted to start their own
community. So they built in 1791, on the "public gi'cen," w^e are told, the
plain thirty by thirty-six biiilding that formed their fii'st church. Their number
was small, and they seem not to have dared assume the burden of supporting
their own pastor. These fledglings must have been tenderly regarded by the
mother church, for its pastor, the Rev. Bezaleel Pinneo, was good enough to
come up once in two weeks and preach to them. How long this arrangement
continued is not clear, but apparently the church had no pastor of its own until
1805, wlien it settled the Rev. Erastus Scranton, a native of East Guilford. He
remained for twenty-two years. The records date the organization of the church
from 1804.

The church saw prosperity under ^Ir. Seranton, and such growth that the
primitive first building was soon outgrown. For as earlj- as 1810 it was replaced
by the present typical New England church edifice, which excellently .serves its
purpose, though the congregation often, in these davs of modern church houses.

AND EASTERN NEW HAVEN COUNTY 311

feels the need of ampler facilities for doing neighborhood and community social
service.

Of the pastors who have served this church in the recent period some of the
best remembered are Rev. H. W. Hunt, who was pastor from 1884: to 1896, and
Rev. B. M. Wright, from 1896 to 1907. Since 1908 the pastor has been
Rev. Newell il. Calhoun, D. D., a leader and teacher of distinguished ability,
and a member of the Yale corporation. Under his guidance the church shows
good health in all its departments, and is serving the community as well as it
has done in all its history.

As ever since the early days. Orange preserves its distinct existence apart
from the life on its eastern and southeastern ]>orders. Though less than five
miles from a large and busy city, though it has what amounts to a city within
its town limits, Orange is still the unspoiled countiy town. It is governed from
West Haven — but West Haven pays the bills. It also furnishes much of the
business for Orange. Orange has its own life, and with it is well content. It
has its own sterling citizens, some of whom rank high in the honor and work
of the state. They do not deserve, and doubtless never did, the unenlightened
stricture of the East Guilford father of the Rev. Erastus Scranton, who is said
to have flippantly remarked that "'Erastus is preaching the gospel to the ever-
lasting heathen of North ]\Iilford. "

The name of Woodruff, for almost two centuries associated with Orange, has
more than ever a leading place there. In the very center of the village is the
seed growing farm of S. D. Woodruif & Sons, employing a large force of men,
and producing reliable farm and garden seeds and supplies. The head of that
firm is the Hon. Watson S. Woodruff, who has run the gamut of the local offices,
been state senator and still occupies a prominent position in polities. Robert
J. Woodruff, attorney, has liis office in New Haven, where he has been prosecutor
in the court of common pleas, but he has always lived in Orange, where he has
a fine residence, and an interest in the seed firm.

One of the institutions of the Orange of today is the model dairy farm of
Wilson H. Lee — Fairlea Farm. Some dozen years ago Jlr. Lee, with foresight
of the part the farm was to have in the public appreciation and service of this
time, purchased a farm in the heart of Orange. There he established a plant
for the producing of milk on scientific j)riiipipl^s, with the application of the
same exact business methods which he uses for the making of a perfect city
directory, or any product of the printer's art. He has demonstrated, more con-
clusively, perhaps than any man in Connecticut that farmi:ig, at least as far as
the producing of milk goes, can be made an exact science. He not only raises
milk of an extremely high quality, but he raises it in an excellent way — and he
makes the process pay. Tributes to his success are the demand for and the
price paid for his product, and the fact that his dairy is recognized as one of
the finest in America. ^Moreover, experts come even from other countries to
study his system and methods, some of which were distinctly original with Mr.
Lee. He has succeeded as well with other branches of farming than the raising

312 A MODERN HISTORY OF NEW HAVEN

of milk. In short, with Fairlea Farm he is performiug a wouderful service for
the agriculture of the state, a service which he supplements by his work through
the state board of agi-iculture and the farm bureaus of this and other states,
whose work he has had gi-eat influence in promoting. As for Orange, he has
done more to "put it ou the map" as a town of fine fanning possibilities than
any farmer it has ever had.

^lany others, seed of the sterling old North Milford stock, make the Orange
of today. Names like Clark and Russell and Treat, Andrew and Baldwin and
Stone, are still conspicuous in the town. :\Iingled with them are patronymics
like Pucilio and Farino and Cuzzocreo, Ceretto and Linquist and Logidice. The
farmers taught in the Old World are competing with those taught in the New.
The social order of the old town changes accordingly, becoming thereby more
truly democratic.

Orange, though West Haven spreads from the entrance of West River to the
harbor down to the point of Savin Rock, is not without seacoa.st. Between Savin
Rock and the beginning of Woodmont there are over two miles of shore front,
today well occupied by the summer dwellings of those who seek the sea, with now
and then a residence of one whose love for the sea is not wholly a summer fancy.
Oyster River Point, Merwin's Beach and Burwell's Beach are communities with
which the Orange we have been obser\'ing has little in common, to be sure, but
they are, in their way, important parts of that town.

In the far western part of the town, along the Housatonic River, is a .section
which has possibilities undeveloped. Rough and in large measure unsettled, an
area of hills and rocks and woodland, it is the most picturesque part of Orange.
Lovers of nature have found it in the pa.st, and wall continue to find it in the
future. The lower Housatonic, approached more commonly from the Hunting-
ton side, is a river second to none in the state and ranking w-ith the best in New
England for beauty and commercial value. Some day when state or federal
authority redeems our water courses from the pollution which destroys their
value and poisons those whom they serve, Orange will have no small part in the
redemption and no small pai-t of the interest.

CHAPTER XXXII
WEST HAVEN

THE SEPARATE COMMUNITY ON THE NEW HAVEN SIDE OP ORANGE WHICH HAS GROWN

INTO A NEAR-CITY ORIGIN AND DEVELOPMENT OF THE AMUSEMENT RESORT,

SAVIN ROCK

Geographical convenience, the accident of West River, made West Haven a
jjart of the Town of Orange instead of the Town of New Haven. It was from
early times more naturally identified with New Haven than with any community
to the westward. It is hardly four miles from New Haven Green to the green
in West Haven, and it was easy and natural that thei-e should he an overflow
from the city in that direction. Moreover, we have good evidence that the eaili-
est settlers on the west hank of West River came from the direction of the
larger community.

But one is prone to forget that the bridges of today did not exist in 1695,
or even a century later. The settlers found their way across, for at low tide
West River is fordable even well toward its mouth. But going back and forth
was not so simple a matter. So it was inevitable that the pioneers should from
the start shape themselves into a separate community. They were farmers at
the beginning, and what became West Haven was early "West Farms." It was
that till almost 1800. Shortly later the name of West Haven liegan to be used,
and has held.

For up to that time, it seems, there was little serious thought of including
West Haven in the town of Orange. Rocks and hills divided North Milford
from West Farms, and the people saw little of each other. If the citizen of
either village in 1800 had been asked to prophesy as to town organization, he
would most likely have said that there was destined to be a town of North Mil-
ford and another town of West Haven. But the two communities together, it
will be noticed, contained only about 1,200 people when Orange was incorporated
in 1822. Of these the large majority, no doubt, were in West Haven. Orange
needed West Haven, and the natural boundary of the West River prevailed. So
the present geographical arrangement fame about. But Wi-st Haven kept right
on growing by itself as if nothing had happened.

The year 1695 is .set for the first begiiniings of independent settlement at
West Farms. Such names as George Lambeiton, Thr)mas Stephens, Thomas

.■n;{

314 A MODERN HISTORY OF NEW HAVEN

Painter, the Benhains, the Wards and tlie Chirks appear among the pioneers.
The marks of their biulding are plain to he seen yet around the center of West
Haven for with their usual accurate sense of the most favorable location, they
settled around what is now the green.

The framework of that early community history is the history of the churches.
In the parish days, before West Haven became a part of a separate town, the
church had by law a positive authority of government. It was the community
center and received more proportionate attention than now. And as usual, it
was in this case the Congregational Church that led the way. The settlers had
not been by themselves in West Farms more than two score years before they
felt able to form their own church. Their feeling coixld not have been unjusti-
fied, for whereas other parishes of the sort found themselves unable to support
their own pastor for several years after church organization, AVest Farms seems
to have done so from the start. The church was formed in 1715. and the first
pastor, Rev. Samuel Johnson, came at once. In fact, the church was able to
erect its own building as early as 1719.

It was not, like some of its contemporaries, a church of long pastorates in
its early days. Between the close of IMr. Johnson's pastorate and 1870, a period
of some 140 years, nine pastors served this church. Then came the pastorate of
Rev. George Sherwood Dickerman, native of ilount Carmel, which continued
from 1870 to 1873. After him was Rev. Norman J. Squires, with a pastorate as
unusually long as the pastor was himself notable, from 1881 to 1914. Rev. Albert
R. Brown came that year, and remained until the spring of 1918. He went to
Y. M. C. A. service on the war front, his departure being on leave of absence
fi'om the church.

As pastors came one after another, so did buildings for the cluuvli. The
first was erected in 1719, and must have seemed, by the time it was replaced in
1852, pretty ancient and primitive. In 1859 this was burned, and was replaced
in the following year bj- the present example of the New England church archi-
tecture of the time. It serves the congregation's purpcses well, especially since
the completion of its ample and unusual parish house in 1916. This edifice,
ad.ioining the church, was built at a cost of $35,000, and is one of the best
appointed and equipped church auxiliary buildings in the New Haven district.
Beginning beneath the main floor, there are commodious dining rooms and a
modern kitchen. On the main floor there is a large audience i-oom. with gallery
divided for class rooms. And on the upper floor there is a gymnasium to delight
the heart of all who have faith in physical exercise as an aid to religion true
and undefiled.

Christ Church, said to be the oldest Episcopal church in the state, now occu-
pies a stone edifice, of architecture dignified and attractive, which also stands
in the center of West Haven, an outward adornment to the community as the
service for which it stands is an inward adornment. Its foundation dates offi-
cially from 1740, but it is said to have been as early as 1722 that Rev. Samuel
Johnson, the first pastor of the neighbor Congregational Church, became con-

ST. LAWRENCE KOitAJS ( ATHULIC UIlUKtll, W KST UA\ KX

MASONIC BUILDING, WEST HAVEN

AND EASTERN NEW HAVEN COUNTY 315

viiieed tliat no man L-ould be saved by Congregationalism alone. He proceeded
to work out his faith in West Haven. How early the first building was erected
is not clear, but there was surely a frame meeting house — though it was not
permitted to call it that — by 1740. As to rectors, in the period between Mr.
Johnson's work and the coming of the Rev. Edwin S. Lines in 187-4 there were
no less than twenty-eight diiferent rectorates. Mr. Liues was with the church
but five years, going on to New Haven in 1879. In 1886 Rev. Hobart B. Whit-
ney was rector, and since 1909 Rev. Floyd S. Kenyon has been in charge of the
growing work. Christ Church also has just completed a model parish house.

The West Haven Methodist Church dates only from 1870, being organized
with Rev. C. W. Lyon as pastor. It has done a useful, aggressive work and pros-
pered from the first, growing with the rapid growth of West Haven. In 1916,
under the leadership of Rev. William Redhcft'er, it completed a new building
on Second Avenue, which is a substantial addition to the church equipment and
public architecture of West Haven. The present pastor is Rev. Charles E. Barto.

St. Lawrence is the Roman Catholic church of We.st Haven, and is now
ministering to large congregations, with a fine building and good equipment.
West Haven continued to be, as to Catholicism, a part of the Milford parisji up
to 1876, when St. Lawrence was established. It has had a succession of able
leaders. Rev. James McGetrick came to the church in 1909, and was with it for
six years. Rev. John Fleming served for a year, being followed in 1916 by the
present pastor, Rev. Francis M. ;\1 array.

Its nearness to New Haven makes West Haven the more independent in some
wa.vs, and one of them is in respect to schools. It has an excellent school sys-
tem, directed by Superintendent Edgar C. Stiles, who has demonstrated him-
self a superior educator and director. The central borough district has a com-
plete graded system, with a principal. Miss Clara Sutherland, and fifty-six
teachers. Outside of West Haven, Orange has the North School district, with
an equipment of seventeen teachers, and the school in the County Home at
Allingtown, where four teachers care for the children.

West Haven was incorporated as a boi-ough in 1837, only fifteen years after
the establishment of Orange as a town. Tliis early incorporation in part explains
the independence of the borough of the town of which it is supposed to he a
part. The rest of the explanation is in its size, which has steadily and rapidly
grown in proportion to the size of Orange. Today West Haven has at least
13.200 of the 15,000 people of the town. This is almost three times the size of
the borough in 1900. The rapid growth, the considerable size of West Haven,
and espeeiall.v certain peculiar problems which require a strong government,
have for some years past impelled some of the citizens of the borough to consider
its incorporation as a city. There was a faction, more in evidence formerly than
now, which believed the simplest solution would be consolidation with New
Haven. But those who took that view never approached a ma.jority. The inde-
pendent spirit of West Haven invariably prevailed, and will prevail. Some
day, jirobably, tliere will be a City of Orange, ^leanwhile. there is a positive.

:jl6 A MODERN HISTORY OF NEW HAVEN

increasingly self confident, well governed borough of West Haven. Its people
live, many of them, in New Haven for business purposes through the day, but
tliey are loyal to the place of their homes. The borough has its well equipped
fire department of five companies, its competent police system, and is gradually
getting what it has long needed, a sewer system.

West Haven's industry started when the community was young, and grew
up with it. As early as 1853 the West Haven Buckle Company was a promising
concern, and has continued up to this time, now employing fifty people, and
capitalized at $17,000. In 1876 the Parmelee Piano Company, of which the late
Henry F. Parmelee became the head, built a factory on lower Campbell Avenue.
Later, under a partly changed ownership, it became the Mathushck Piann Com-
pany, aiul put out an instrument that won a wide and favorable reputation. A
dozen years ago the business was discontinued, and the factory, with the excep-
tion of a brief use for automobile manufacturing, remained vacant until S. R.
Avis & Sons took it over in 1914 for the manufacture of gun barrels. They
now liave $100 000 capital, and employ over 300 people. George R. Kelsey
formed the American Buckle & Cartridge Company in 1883, and Israel A.
Kelsey was its president and treasurer in 1890.

New Haven makes a somewliat unsuccessful effort to claim the Hall Organ
Company, which has a wide reputation as a maker of church organs, but as a
matter of fact its factory is in West Haven. Other strictly West Haven indus-
tries are the Alderhurst Iron Works and the Yale Iron & Stair Company, orna-
mental and structural iron work ; the Sanderson Fertilizer & Chemical Company
and the Connecticut Fat Rendering and Fertilizer Company, fertilizers; Walter
R. Clinton, gasoline engines; the Cameron Manufacturing Company, automo-
bile parts; the West Haven j\Ianufacturing Company, hack saws and frames;
the Western Electric Company, telephone supplies; the Wire Novelty ^Maiui-
facturing Company, wire novelties; John Wilkinson, confectioner}'.

West Haven has one financial institution, the Orange Bank & Trust Com-
pany, with a savings department. It is capitalized at $25,000, and has savings
deposits of $326,929. Its president is Watson S. Woodruff.

Many years ago there was, at the point where the broadening mouth of New
Haven harbor curves inward to make a shallow bay to tlie east of Oyster River
and Bradley Point, a lonely rock, or group of rocks. In those days of its first
discovery it was wholly or partly covered by a growth of living green. The
newcomers from the Old World immediately saw that the juniper shrub which
made the rock evergreen was like to what they had known in old England as
"savin" — the Sabine herb of the ancient Latins, as indeed it is allied to it in
family. How early this was called Savin Rock one cannot say, but the liistories
tell us that General Garth and his red coated invaders' landed at Savin Rock in
1779. Probably the rocky cliff had a more than incidental interest to the early

SA\'1X RUCK. NEW IIAVEX

AND EASTERN NEW HAVEN COUNTY 317

settlei-s of West Farms. It was their lookout to sea. There the "breaking
waves dashed high" in winter or in storm. Savin Rock wa.s a landmark.

But it seems to have be^n from New Haven that Savin Rock really was dis-
covered. To confess the truth. New Haven had and has rather poor picking of
sliore front close at home. The harbor front has been a muddy, shifting thing
rather than a bathing beach, and for some decades past the discharge of sewage
has made it woi-se. The seeker of inviting seashore had to go well down toward
the mouth of the harbor. And somehow the west sliore was the first to be dis-
covered. Traveling down that shore, the first point that seemed to have anything
to satisfy was the old juniper-covered rock.

So it came about, gradually at first, then with a ru.sh, that Savin Rock was
New Haven's amusement resort. As early as 1867 the street railway reached
West Haven center from the city, and a few yeai-s later the demand of pleasure
seekers had extended it to "the Rock." For tliirty years more the summer
travel to that shore grew steadily, but slowly, Merry-go-romids came to the aid
of nature. The peanut man came to hear what the wild waves were saying,
and to make a penny by his wares. Other aids to amusement of the primitive
type appeared. Bathing facilities were developed, though to make bathing
attractive on almost any of the beaches near Savin Rock nature ne^ds a great
deal of assistance. Savin Rock became popular, and people sought its breezes
increasingly as relief from summer heat as the size of the city grew.

Looking back now, it seems that this era of development ought to be disre-
garded. For the real making of what is now known as Savin Rock came with a
rush soon after 1900. The slow growing amusement resort had located itself,
not precisely at the Rock. Init on the flat a little to the ea.st of it, wliere the sea-
ward view leaps over mud flats which seem at low tide to make walking all the
way to Long Island feasible. But it wasn't with the seaward view that the exploit-
ers of Savin Rock especially concerned themselves. They worked on the theory
that the average plea.sure seeker would find a lot more fun in spending his
money to ride on flying horses, in shattering his nerves on a "dip of death" or
a "'shoot the chutes" than in listening to the less expen.sive voice of the mur-
muring sea. It wasn't all theory, either, for these promoters had received their
education at Coney Island or Far Roc'kawa.v. They would make Savin Rock a
Connecticut Coney Island, and gather many shekels.

They have done it. That was the time when the "White City" sprung up
in a night, as it were, with its wonderful electric tower and its crystal mazes
and its chutes and its numberless side shows and, presently, its moving picture
theaters. Space within its gates was only for the elect of the concessionaires —
those who would pay high. And it was at fir.st expected that the people would
also pay high .just for entering its charmed portals — and give up all the rest
they had except their carfare after they got in. But the scheme didn't work to
perfection. For there were enterprising amusement promoters who found it
cheaper to get space in the grove and on the streets outside the charmed city,
and there they put up flying horses and Ferris wheels and Old Mills and soda

318 A MODERN HISTORY OF NEW HAVEN

and pop-coru aud peanut stands. Then there were started daily band concerts
in the park ontside the White City. And a good share of the public was content
to stay outside. So the gates of the White City were made toll free, and the
people go in and out as they will, and spend or not, as they please. But most
of them please to speiul somewhere. Savin Rock is the ilecca — the term is not
used loosely or merely figuratively — for summer multitudes not only from New
Haven, but from Bridgeport, from the allied cities of the Derby region, from
Naugatuck and Waterl)ury, ]Meriden and Hartford, and from all points to the
eastward. It's a great place to see summer life, and still more favorable for
study of the high art of separating man — not to mention woman — from his
money.

This summer flood has made no small police and fire and excise problem for
We.st Haven. It has not always been solved in the best way. But with experi-
ence the borough authorities seem to improve. However, there is obvious need
for more powers and some improvements that only a municipality can have.
West Haven suffers from Savin Rock ; it also profits from Savin Rock. The lat-
ter condition is so positive that nobody is likely to volunteer much aid in help-
ing West Haven meet its difSculty.

CHAPTER XXXIII
WALLINGFORD

E^\ELY LIFE OF THE MOTHER TOWN OF MERIDEN AND CHESHIRE — ITS CHURCHES,
SCHOOLS AND SOME OP THE MEN WHO HAVE MADE IT

On the eastern bordei' of New Haveu Couuty, just above the point where the
boundary line of the county turns eastward for five miles to take in the towns
of Guilford and Madison, is an irregularly shaped town of 37.4 square miles. It
was called Wallingford when it was set off from the New Haven tract in 1670,
from "Walling-ford in Berkshire County of Old England. Today it has a popula-
tion estimated at more than 12,-500 people, of whom upward of 10,000 are
included in a borough district which occupies about a twelfth of the area of the
town. In that borough is the dynamic force of Wallingfoi'd — its manufacturing
force. For Wallingford, older than ]Meriden, wa.s independently one of the
important points of origin of the silver shaping and plating industry, and retains
one of the largest independent silver plants of America. There are some indus-
tries of note outside the borough limits, but in the main the part of Wallingford
which lies outside the borough is farming country, good and well improved.

Less positive in its natural features than the towns to the south and north
of it, Wallingford has its unmistakable character of topography. It has the
grandeur of the shadow of Mount Carmel, which rises clear to its southern bor-
der. At its far eastern point it has in Besick Mountain a height almost as great —
700 feet, on account of which, partly, the Air Line road had to belie its name and
make a detour into Durham through Reed's Gap, as it leaves Wallingford. It
has diversifying heights all over its .surface, except where at the south it slopes
off toward the plain of North Haven. And through it from north to south flows
the Quinnipiae River, there a substantial stream, with possibilities of water
power which have by no means been neglected. Today it is an agreeable com-
bination of manufacturing and agricultural community, an example of New
England 2)luck, enterprise and prosperity in their most commendable forms.

Colonial Wallingford was a territory of distinguished size. For it was a
large part of that second New Haven purchase from the Indians, which ran,
as it was roughly described, ten miles north and south along the Quinnipiae, and
extended about eight miles east and five miles west from the river. Original
Wallingford, therefore, included the territory from the North Haven and Bran-
ford upper lines northward to that east and west division of Meriden which

319

;520 A MODERN HISTOK-Y OF NEW HAVEN

was the "Masou and Dixon line" between the colonics of New Haven and Hart-
ford, and westward from the eastern boundary of the county to beyond the
western side of Cheshire. Meriden was carved from this territory in 1806,
and Cheshire was taken in 1780, leaving still a town of substantial size. It
had 2,325 people after the second parting. That number did not "boom" in
the following decades, but showed a steady, consistent growth which is like
Wallingford. By 1850 it had become almost 2,600, but such was its centralization
that its people. felt the need of forming a borough government. This they did
in 1853, making Wallingford the sixth borough to be formed in the state.

The colony of New Haven was just entering its fourth decade when it sent
out the pioneers who made Wallingford. That first year, which was 1669, they
called the place "New Haven village." Only a year later the legislature incor-
porated it as Wallingford. That pilgrimage, like the first, was led by a minister,
Rev. Samuel Street, and he and his followers brought with them the spirit of
church dominance that prevailed in New Haven. Thirty-eight heads of families
were in the pai'ty, and there was .a systematic allotment between them of the
land then included in the township, each getting six acres.

These names have lieen preserved, not only in the histories, but in the making
of a noble town of the true New England character. Not a few of them were
substantial members of the Davenport-Eaton colony, coming over on the Hector
or arriving soon afterward. Among them is the name of Thoma,s Yale, father of
Elihu, and we understand from that why Yale as a family name is more con-
spicuous in Wallingford than in New Haven. There was also the Eaton name,
still found in Wallingford. Hall was represented by two families, and has lost
nothing in the passage of tlie years. In the course of that progress has come
tlie Lyman Hall who signed the Declaration of Independence as one of the dele-
gates from Georgia. Abraham Doolittle, Samuel Cooke, John Broekett,
Nathaniel and Jermiah and Zachariah How, John Merriman, Nathan and Samuel
Andrews, Sanuiel Munson, Eleazur and John Peck, are a few of the others to
make up the fonndei-s, or, as they were formally called the "planters," most of
them well represented in the town toda.y.

They were Puritans, and religious worship was the center of the community.
But they seem not to have hastened, as did John Davenport's followers, to the
building of a meeting house. In Rev. Samuel Street they had a faithful leader,
and they were for several yeare able to find places in their homes where they
could gather. So it was not until 1675 that the church was formally organized,
and tliree years later that they decided to build the fii-st meeting house. That,
when completed, was but a bare building twenty-four by twenty-eight feet, of
the very primitive type. The fact that seven years previous to this, in 1671, the
planters were taxed to secure funds to provide an ordained minister would indi-
cate that the work of Mr. Street ceased before that. He was the first of a line
of distinguished pastors, including such men as Rev. James Noyes, in the years
from ]789 to 1830, Rev. Edwin R. Gilbert, from then till 1874, Rev. C. H. Dickin-
son. 1886 to 1893. Rev. John J. Blair. 1894 to 1903. Rev. John Burford Parrv

POSTOFFICE. WALLIXGFORD

HK.H St H(MiI. JHILDIXG. WALLIXOFORD

AND EASTERN NEW HAVEN COUNTY 321

came to the church in 1911, and for six years thrilled the people of the congrega-
tion and community with his splendid and inspiring leaderehip, leaving regret-
fully at the call of the large Hope church in Springfield. Rev. Edwin G.
Zellars has succeeded him in favor of the church and community.

Primitive as it was, the first church building served for almost a century.
In 1771 it was replaced by a much larger one of three stories, which for almost
another century was the ''First Church of Wallingford" in more senses than
one. In 186!) this was replaced by the present noble l)uilding on ]Main street,
an example of the best of its type of New England church architecture, and a
credit to the town.

The beginnings of the Church of England worship in Wallingford go back
to 1729, but it was nearly three decades later that there was an Episcopal church
building. Meanwhile, the small number of Episcopalians in town had shared
with their brethren in North Haven the "Union Church" on Pond Hill. The
first building in Wallingford was in 1758, and had the distinction of what was
doubtless the first church organ brought to Wallingford. With all other Episco-
palians the Wallingford people suffered the setback which the Revolutionary
war brought to their form of worship, and it was well toward the end of the cen-
tury before they got on their feet again. What is now known as St. Paul's, the
outgrowth of that church, is now occupying its fourth building, its present digni-
fied and churchly structure having been erected in 1869. The rector is Rev.
Arthur P. Greenleaf, who is also in charge of the church of St. John the Evan-
gelist in Yalesville, the only other church of this faith in town.

Baptist beginnings were also found very early. The attitude which the
■'orthodox" church took toward that faith must have made their path thorny
in 17o5, unless Wallingford was more liberal than most other Connecticut com-
munities. But though their church was organized at that date, 1817 is given
as the date of the foundation of the First Baptist, whose spire now pierces the
sky in the center of Wallingford. This steeple, however, was not added until
1847. It still holds, presumably that bell which Lord Wallingford of England
gave to the church in 1817. The pastor in 1917 was Rev. W. T. Thayer. There
is a Baptist church at Yalesville of which Rev. C. W. Longman was pastor in
1917, and a Hungarian Baptist in the borough, organized in 1914, whose pastor
is Rev. Michael Fabian.

The start of Methodism in Wallingford is comparatively recent, and the first
church to be organized was not in the borough, but in Yalesville. It is called the
First Methodist and was started in 1867. There is also a First Methodist in the
borough, organized in 1895. The pastor of the former is Rev. William C. Judd,
and of the latter Rev. John Moore.

As with many of the other denominations, Catholicism had its beginnings
considerably before there was strength for a church. It was in 1857 that a church
was organized and a building erected on North Colony Street, that being the
building which was found in the path of the memorable tornado of 1878. Rebuilt
in 1887, it is now the Most Holy Trinity Church, of which Rev. John H. Carroll

322

A MODERN HISTORY OF NEW HAVEN

is pastor, one of the strongest churches in Wallingford. The St. Kazimir Polish
National Church was organized in 1915, and is doing a good work under Rev.

Joseph Solstyiak.

One of the live congregations of Wallingford todrfy meets in the Advent
Church, of which Rev. Henry Stone is pastor. Incorporated in 1880, it has for
almost four decades been doing an able work in the community.

There is a Hungarian Reformed Church, of which Rev. Bela Kovacs is pastor,
and a single synagogue of the faith of Israel.

Early Wallingford had the -'church on the hilltop"; the "schoolhouse i)i
every valley" followed not far behind. In 1719 there were three schools, the
minimum number, it would seem, for so scattered a community as the then
undivided town was. They were open to the service of the parents of the town
only on payment of a fee, and gave the crudest sort of instruction. Neverthe-
less, they were the foundation for the six grammar and six district schools
which the town has today, in addition to its handsome High school. The esti-
mated value of the plant is now a quarter of a million dollai-s, and $60,000 is
the annual expenditure for the free education of Wallingford 's 2,872 cliildren
of school age. John W. Kratzer is superintendent of schools and acting principal
of the High school.

Wallingford has a private school, college preparatory for boys, which has
won success by deserving it — and the 'success is marked. The Choate School
now has a wide reputation for high class and thorough instruction, and its loca-
tion is in many respects ideal. Its head master is George Clare St. John, with
a corps of eighteen assistants.

Wallingford has a federal building of unusually attractive architecture, com-
pleted at a cost of $95,000 in 1913, and standing at a prominent point on South
Main Street. For securing it so soon, and securing so tine a building, Walling-
ford thanks first Senator Orville H. Piatt, and second its own honored citizen,
Charles 6. Phelps, formerly his secretary at AVashington, now the secretaiy of
the ilanufacturers' Association of Connectieiit, always an active worker for
the good of his beloved town. A postmaster and assistant, four clerks, seven
local and three mounted earriere distribute from this center Wallingford 's mail
to borough and town.

Its age as a borough by this time has given Wallingford effective experience
in municipal management, and there are few communities in the state that are
better governed. Nearly a decade ago it attacked in earnest the problem of per-
manent paving, and has now to show for its intelligent effort upwards of ten
miles of asphalt, brick, tar and water bound macadam pavement, an ef(uipment
to be matched by few boroughs of its size. It has a motorized fire department,
consisting of a chemical engine company, two hose companies, a hook and ladder
and a volunteer company, of which the chief engineer is John J. Luby. There
is a municipal water supply plant, constructed in 1882, which conducts water
by gravity, mainly from Pistapaugh Pond, four and one-half miles east of the
borough, and Lane's Pond, the two together having a capacity oi nearly

HOIA" TRINITY I HlKrH. \VALLIX(;F()i;l)

AND EASTERN NEW HAVEN COUNTY 323

600,000,000 gallons. There is also an auxiliary pumping station of a million
gallons' capacity. The borough has its publicly owned electric light and power
plant, of which it is highly and justly proud. John E. Martin was warden of
the borough in 1917.

Wallingford has an adequate number of banks which for efficient manage-
ment, substance and security are the match of any. The First National, with
a record of over thirty-five years behind it, is capitalized at $150,000 and has a
surplus of $50,000 more, over 800 accounts and deposits approaching half a
million. In its foundation and management have been associated some of the
most substantial men of Wallingford, such as Samuel Simpson, W. J. Leaven-
worth, the late Judge Leverett M. Plubbard and Frank A. Wallace, the present
head of the R. Wallace & Sons Manufacturing Company. The Wallingford
Trust Company is the youngest of the banking institutions, with $50,000 capital,
well ec^uipped to do a trust and savings business. Its president is Lewis M.
Phelps and its secretary and treasurer C. Leslie Hopkins. The Dime Savings
Bank, in existence since 1871, is a conservatively managed but most successful
institution which well testifies to Wallingford 's thrift. By the last report it had
deposits of $1,698,250. Its president is Henry H. Peck and its treasurer Edwin
C. Northrop.

Wallingford, beautiful for location, has been chosen as the site of the masonic
Home of Connecticut, which is delightfully situated on the west hills of the
town, where a fine building was completed in 1897. It now has several additions,
and grows with its requirements. The wards of Connecticut Masonry could
hardly have better surroundings or management.

One of Wallingford 's state-famous institutions is the Gaylord Farm Sana-
torium, which serves all New Haven county as a private place for the treat-
ment of tuberculosis. Originally due to the initiative of Wallingford people,
its excellent management ha.s attracted service and gifts from many wealthj'
persons of county and state, and under the skillful direction of Dr. David R.
Lyman it is reckoned the state's best private institution of the sort.

Wallingford has a well equipped and attractive public library, established
in 1881, and conducted by the Ladies' Library and Reading Room assoeia-
ton. of which ]Mrs. G. Frederick Hall is president. The library had 13,717 vol-
umes in 1917, and has substantial additions each year. Its librarian is Miss
Minnie E. Gedney.

There are some forty-six fraternities, societies, clubs and similar organiza-
tions. Among them are four bodies of the Masonic order, three of the Odd
Fellows, four courts of the Foresters of America, two divisions of the Ancient
Order of Hibernians, one council of the Knights of Columbus, one aerie of the
Eagles, one trilse of the Red Men, a lodge of the New England Order of Pi'o-
tection, one of the endowment rank of Knights of Pythias, one of the Royal
Arcanum, Wallingford Grange, three temperance societies and Arthur H. Dut-
ton post, G. A. R., with its woman's relief corps. There are two prominent
clubs, the Wallingford Club and the Wallingford Country Club.

324 A MODERN HISTORY OF NEW HAVEN

In a commuuity which for years has made it a conscientious custom to cele-
brate the nation's birthday in a sane and thoug-htful manner, one expects
tviin patriotism as a matter of course. Wallingf ord 's Fourth of July events
have become widely famous. So, in the crisis of war, Wallingford has never
been found wanting. It is through hundreds of soldiers, sailors ^nd other war
workers carrying on its share of the nation's great struggle with all its heart.
It has had its one military company since 1871 — Company K of the Second regi-
ment that was. At times in its existence it has been known as the Wallingford
Light Guard, but in all its history it has been composed of good soldiers. They
are good soldiers still, honoring their state at the front. The company went
out in the fall of 1917 under the command of a captain from another town,
hut witli Lieut. Dana T. Leavenworth of Wallingfoi^.

And Wallingford can never lack distinction among the towns of America
in the war so long as it is remembered that Major Raoul Lufbury, premier of
.'American airmen on the fighting front, owns the town as his home.

It is forty years since Wallingford 's calamity, as great as it was sudden,
made it nationally famous at a cost too dear. There are thousands living in
almost all parts of tlie country who instantly associate the name of Wallingford
with "the great tornado of 1878." Even compared with the now familiar tor-
nado or cyclone of the' western plains, this held and .still holds a bad eminence.
The valley in which the borough lies is especially subject to violent summer
storms. With hardly more than the usual warning, at 6 :15 on the evening of
Friday, August 9, 1878, a rushing, twisting blast of wind, followed by torrents
of water, swept southeast across the town. 'It visited especially wlmt had been
"the community" section, but did not wholly miss tlie center. It was over in
a minute and a half, though the deluge lasted for ten or twelve minutes. When
it had pa.ssed, twenty -nine persons were dead (another died within a day or
two), thirty -six were more or less seriously injured, and thirty or forty dwell-
ings, with an uncounted number of barns and smaller buildings were unroofed
or laid low, while two or three times that number were more or less damaged.
The largest building destroyed was that of the Most Holy Trinity Catholic
churcli on North Colony Street, which was wholly demolished. It was a ter-
rible experience for a town of 4,500 people, and Wallingford shudders over
it vet. ' ,

THE MASONIC TKMin.l-:, \VALLIX(;Fl)KI)

CHAPTER XXXIV
WALLINGFORD (Concluded)

MANUFACTURING AND INDUSTRIAL HISTORY OF AN IMPORTANT CENTER OF THE SlLVEll
FABRICATING ART, AND ITS PRESENT-DAY PROGRESS

This structure of two centuries and a half was not achieved without labor,
and Wallingford prides itself that it is a community of workers. Whether
in the busy central borough, with its driving wheels and smoke-pennanted chim-
neys, or in the fringe of communities which industrial plants make about it,
or in the setting of prosperous farms which encloses the whole, Wallingford
beats with honest, intelligent industry. It is proud of that. It exults in the
fame of what it produces. For whether it be a Wallingford peach or a Wal-
lingford spoon or a Wallingford apple, it is a goodly product, in which the
user rejoices.

There is little chance for precedence in this dual fame of Wallingford.
If tlie farmers of Wallingford began to get crops in 1670, the wheels of the
miller began to turn by the .side of Wharton's Brook in 1674. The manufac-
turing of the first century and a half, of course, before the days of modern
demand or transportation, was of the primitive nature which is shown in other
Connecticut towns away from tide-water, but it had a certain steady progress
from the beginning. That old grist mill right, first used by the town, transferred
by the town to William Tyler in 1707, a century later passed on to Charles
Yale, then transferred to Samuel Simpson in 1835, was the beginning of the
.silver industry of which- Wallingford, in a very true sense, was the origin and
center. Yet Wallingford is not at all exclusively a silver town. Of the twenty-
one considerable factories found today in the town of Wallingford only seveu
are devoted to the making of silver, flat ware or white metal. These, to be sure,
include the town's most important plants. ,One of them alone employs almost as
many people as all the other factories put together, while the seven of them have
a great majority of the workers. An impressive proof, moreover, of the emi-
nence which Wallingford has in the silver industry is the fact that it contains
one of the most important silver factories in the country which has remained
outside of the International Silver Company combination. That is R. Wallace
& Sons ^Manufacturing Company. It is the descendant of the old mill afore-
said, through Samuel Simpson, its purchaser in 1835, through the Humiston
Mills, which he purchased in 1847, then through the partnership, formed in

325

326 A MODERN HISTORY OF NEW HAVEN

1855, with Robert Wallace, to the final purchase, iu 1871, of the interest of
Mr. Simpson by Robert Wallace, and the formation of the present company.

It was the revelation to Robert Wallace, as far back as 1855, of the possi-
bilities of the metal known as Gennan silver that started him on his career. He
purchased the foi-mula from Dr. Feuchtwanger, a German chemist who had
just brought it to this countrj^, and threw himself with the might and the
mind of a Yankee into the new manufacture. The firm which bears his name
today is the summary of his success. In the largest factory of his native town,
iu rooms with a floor space of over five acres, employing upward of 1,200 peo-
ple — skilled craftsmen, mechanics, artists of all sorts — is made an endless vari-
ety of sterling silver flat ware, hollow ware, toilet ware and novelties, silver
plated ware of an even greater variety, which goes to almost every country
of the world.

When the International Silver Company was organized, there were in Wal-
liugford three other important silver making factories. The largest of these was
Simpson, Hall, Miller & Company, the outgrowth of the company of his own
which Samuel Simpson formed in 1866, after Robert Wallace had purchased
his interests. Shortly afterward Mr. Simpson organized the company under
its present name. It is Factory L of the trust, and makes an important line of
silver sterling and plated ware. Over forty years ago there was in Wallingford
a Shaker community of some size, and with thrifty instinct they turned to the
making of silver goods. The lake or pond iu the upper part of the borough still
bears their name — Community Lake. When their diminishing numbers gave
up the struggle in Wallingford and went to join forces with a community else-
where, a Wallingford company, which afterward became the Watrous Manu-
facturing Company, purchased their plant. It is now iu the trust as Factory
P. There remained one firm, established in 1871, the Simpson Nickel Silver
Company. That in turn was absorbed as Factory M. The three factories
together now employ the greater part of a thousand people.

There are three smaller plants, two of them of Rogers affiliation, which
remain independent. The Dowd, Rogers Company makes silver plated ware
and novelties. The S. L. & G. H. Rogers Company makes silver plated table
ware. This is a $250,000 company, and George M. Hallenbeck is its president.
The Wallingford Company, Inc., makes electro plated flat ware, employing about
200 people.

The New York Insulated Wire Company, with half a million dollars capital,
was established in 1884, and is the second oldest concern of its line in the United
States. Some twenty years ago there was in Wallingford a Metropolitan Rub-
ber Company, and in 1889 the New York Insulated Wire Company, outgrowing
its quarters in Reading, Mass., moved to Wallingford and occupied with the
rubber company its factory on Cherry Street. The rubber company retired from
business about 1903, and since then the wire company has occupied and enlarged
the factory. ' It now employs about 300 workers, and produces annually some
millions of feet of rubber covered wires and thousands of pounds of insulating

R. WALLACE AND SOXS' MAXUFACTURIXCi COMTAXY. \VALLIX(:;F0RD

FACTORY L OF THE IXTERXATIOXAL SILN'ER COJIPAXY, '\\ALLmGFORD

AND EASTERN NEW HAVEN COUNTY 327

tapes and compounds. It lias a market for its goods not only all over the coun-
try but in the far corners of the earth, supplying leading electrical concerns as
far away as Mexico, South America, South Africa and Japan. Its main offices
are in New York city, and it has branches in Boston, Chicago, San Francisco and
Japan. Its president is C. H. Wilcox of New York, and its general manager is
William Poole, assisted by Walter Ilill and A. C. Brooks.

Wallingford has been making fireworks for over forty years, and its
M. Baekes' Sons Fireworks Company is one of the old concerns in a business iu
which this country has taken a lead in the last few decades. Not only that,
but it is estimated that it supplies ninety per cent, of the toy cap, torpedo and
firecracker trade of the United States, and besides sends quantities of goods to
Canada, South America and Australia. Its Star Brand is a familiar one to
celebrators in a large part of the world. It has withal made every effort to
conform its product to the requirements for a saner type of holiday explosive,
and everything it makes is combined with such accuracy as to reduce the liability
of accident to the lowest point. It employs some seventy-five skilled workmen,
and all its ownei-s and managers live in and are prominent in Wallingford. Its
factoi-y is on Wallace Street, and its officers are: Charles Baekes, president;
Mi.ss Kate Baekes, secretary; Henry R. Baekes, treasurer. The company was
organized in 1904, with a capital of $50,000. It has always been progi-essivc,
and its lines are constantly increasing and developing novelty in the hands of
experts and inventors.

The business of H. L. Judd Company, makers of upholsterers' hardware,
bright wire goods, metal fancy goods and such products, was started iu the late
'sixties by H. L. Judd. In 1879 John Day, now president, came in as a partner,
and in 1884 the business was incorporated as H. L. Judd & Company, being
sixteen years later, on the death of Mr. Judd, changed to its present form. It
has grown to a capital of $350,000, and employs over 1,000 hands. Its Walling-
ford plant now makes brass goods alone, but it has a wood cui-tain pole factory
in East Chattanooga, Term. Its factory in Brooklyn was combined with the
Wallingford shops to the enlargement of the latter. It has offices and show
rooms at two points in New York city, btit remains, as it was in the beginning,
a strictly Wallingford industry. It makes enormous quantities of. high grade
goods, which are widely known as a famous Wallingford product.

The W. A. Ives Manufacturing Company, wood boring tools, is another of the
substantial firms of Wallingford, established 1830. It has a capital of $50,000
and employs a large force. Its president is C. J. Dunham.

Other manufacturing concerns are less conspicuous in size, but each has its
importance. Five of them create the village of Yalesville, where the C. I.
Yale Manufacturing Company makes chemicals, the William Brisk & Sons Manu-
facturing Company makes coffee percolators, the Charles Parker Company
makes hardware, the Connecticut Screen and Cabinet Company makes cabinet
work and window screens and Brown & Wilcox make cement block and artificial

328 A MODERN HISTORY OF NEW HAVEN

stone. The Jeunin^ & Griffiu Manufacturing Company makes machinists' tools
at Tracy, and incidentally makes the Tracy village.

Several other industries make up the goodly company, among them being
the Eastern Woodworking Company, woodwork and handles; W. J. Hodgette
Paper Box Manufacturing Company, paper boxes; Paul A. Koletzke, wagons;
Malmquist Brothers, die sinkers ; Oddy & Son, wagon and auto wheels ; Wilbur
Company, celluloid.

This is, it might seem, the substance of the borough and town of Walling-
ford. But it could not live except for the agriculture which improves the town
acres of which the manufacturing plants, large as they are, occupy but a little
part. Moreover, Wallingford is almost as widely and altogether as favorably
known for its produts of farm and orchard as for its manufactures. And thougii
one might not expect to find it so, the industry of farming, on a large scale is
younger in Wallingford than is manufacturing. The pioneer in the raising of
peaches dates his first orchard investment only from 1880, when Elijah Hough
set out 100 trees. Now, one who rides by train through Wallingford in the
season finds its hillsides so glowing with the pink beauty that he wonders if
nothing but peaches grows in that region. The facts are more definite. It
is estimated that Wallingford raises something over a quarter of a million
baskets of peaches annually, and in an especially good year the crop is much
larger than that. There are now ten large growers besides Mr. Hough, with
some 62,500 bearing trees, and this does not take into account some scores of
smaller growers.

In 1904 W. A. Henry, formerh' dean of the Agricultural College of Wis-
consin, purchased Blue Hills farm, some 300 acres on the western slopes of the
Quinnipiac valley, and clearing considerable acres of its abandoned land, planted
them with peach, apple, pear, cherry, Japanese plum and quince trees, until
about 125 acres are so set. Ten years later of peaches alone 25,000 baskets were
Iiarvested. The professor testifies as an expert that Wallingford land, wliile not
notably rich, is peculiarly adapted to the production of these fruits, and urges
his neighbors to put more faith in their soil.

There is nearby supply for starting such orchards, for in the town also is
the Barnes Brothers Nursery Company, started in 1900 and incorporated four
years later. It is the most extensive producer of fruit trees and plants in Ncav
England, supplying fruit gi-owere in New England, New York, New Jersey and
Delaware. In Fredonia and Dansville, New York, it has branch nurseries for
products which cannot be economically grown in Wallingford. Its nurseries
produce all manner of fruit, small fruit trees and shrubs and shade trees, occu-
pying 125 acres. Barnes Brothers also have 550 acres in farm land and peach
orchards.

Faith in the agricultural possibilities of Wallingford is not rare, as hun-
dreds of small farms testify. The town is within easy shipping distance of New
York and Boston, so that in addition to the local and nearby markets, there is
ready means of disposing of the product. The railroads are convenient, and the

H. L. JUDD MANUFACTURING CX3., WALLINC4F0RD

CXJENER OF MAIN AND CENTER STREETS, WALLINGFORD

AND EASTEKN NEW HAVEN COUNTY 329

roads to the nearby towus steadily improve, while the motor truck is coming
to be more dependable than the railroad.

The success of Wallingford is a matter of team play rather than of individual
distinction. It has contributed its share of men great in the work and counsel
of state and nation. But the story of the men who make it today is told mainly
in this record of church and education and industry. Names like Frank A.
Wallace, C. H. Tibbits, John Day, Charles G. Phelps and Charles Backes in
manufacturing; C. W. Leavenwortli, F. il. Cowles, Lewis il. Phelps and Henry
W. Peck in banking; Eev. J. Burford Parry, Rev. Arthur P. Greenleaf, Rev.
Edwin G. Zellers, Rev. John H. Carroll and Henry Stone in the churches;
George Clare St. John and John W. Kratzer in the schools; Dr. David R.
Lyman, Dr. John H. Buffum, Dr. Irving E. Brainerd and Dr. William S. Rus-
sell in medicine; the late Judge Leverett M. Hubbard, Judge John G. Phelaii,
Judge Oswin H. D. Fowler, Michael T. Downes and Charles A. Harrison in law ;
E. J. Hough and A. T. Henry in agi-iculture — these indicate to the discerning
something of the reason why Wallingford today is the substantial, prosperous
community it is.

CHAPTER XXXV
BRANFORD

ORIGINS OF AN IMPORTANT OLD COLONIAL TOWN, AND THE EVOLUTION FROM THEM
OP A LIVELY, MODERN MANUFACTURING ANQ.. FARMING COMMUNITY

When, in the spring of 1644, the ten-itory of Totoket was sold by the New
Haven proprietors to Mr. Swaine and certain others who had lately come down
from Wethei-sfield, it was described as "a place fit for a small plantation, betvnxt
New Haven and Guilford. ' ' As then bounded, there were some forty-five square
miles of it. and it compared well with other plantations except the very large
one that Guilford was before Madison was set oif from it. And it was a goodly
plantation.

Branford, like Guilford, received its original settlement independently of
New Haven. The New Haven colonists had land to spare, and wanted neighbors.
They seem to have offered inducements to such desirable planters as Mr. Swainc
and his associates from Wethersfield, and the Rev. Abraham Piersou and his
followers from Southampton, Long Island, proved to be. Samuel, brother of
Theophilus Eaton, had obtained a grant of tlie Totoket part of the second pur-
chase from tlie Indians, representing that he wished it for such friends as he
might bring over from England. He sailed away then, and on his return to
England .seems to have lost his taste for the New World; at least, he did not
come back, and the land remained unoccupied.

There was an incident between this grant and tlie time of the actual settle-
ment whose close approach to conditions changing the whole face of southern
New Haven County seem to have been overlooked. The Dutch explorers were
always prospecting, and within two or three years after Samuel Eaton sailed
away, they entered the mouth of Branford River. There they set up stakes,
and established a trading post. Then they too sailed away, and virtually they
did not come back. We are likely never to get the whole story of "Dutch
House Wharf" at Branford; perhaps there is nothing to tell. But something
seems to be lacking of explanation why the Dutch failed to retain their sense
of the natural advantages of the Branford location.

Totoket, "the tidal river," was the poetic Indian name. It still remains
as a place name, still is applied to that commanding cliff which stands near the
bounds between what was upper Branford and what still is upper Guilford.
Brenford or Brainford, a town on the Brent dose to London, was the place of

330

OLDEST HOUSE IN BRANFORD
Built in 1666. Orijiinally a fort. Mado intu a lioiiso by a Mr

owiUT in the Rovnhitionaiv War. ]!■

Plumli. Danirl Averill
II ill till' Avcrill Kaiiiilv 11,") years.

AND EASTERN NEW HAVEN COUNTY 331

origin of some of the immigrants. So, with eventual changes, Branford it
became. The settlers found their Indian associates good neighbors, the latter
appreciated the white man's protection, and together they prospered.

There is a fairly good record of the names of those who came down froui
Wethersfield, and of those who came out from New Haven to join them. The
personnel of the party that came with Rev. Abraham Piei-son has not been
preserved. The reason for that is, no doubt, that the stay of the latter was
comparatively brief. They had come from Southampton because they preferred
the New Haven style of government. But when, in 1664, by the recklessness of
Charles II in boimding New Netherlands on the east by the Connecticut River,
they found themselves ostensibly in Dutch territory, while the others protested
but remained, the Rev. Abraham Pierson and his followere folded their tents
like the Arabs, and quietly stole away to Newark.

The real leader of the Wethersfield party, who was pastor in the beginnings
of the Branford church, was Rev. John Sherman. He removed to Watertown
on the coming of Mr. Piereon. William Swaine, or Swain, and his sons Samuel
and Daniel, Richard Harrison, Robert Rose, Thomas Whitehead, Edward Fris-
bie, John Hill, John Norton, Samuel Nettleton and Edward Treadwell, were
among the other members from Wethersfield. Thoma.s Morris, Thomas Lup-
ton, George and Lawrence Ward and John Crane came out from New Haven.
There were two other early settlers whose status is of interest. The comere in
1644 found Thomas Mulliner and Thomas Whitway on the ground. The former
was something of an adventurer, described as "a restless and independent spirit."
He had made his purchase from the Indians, had settled near the sea and naturally
regarded the later arrivals somewhat as usurpers. They never got along with him,
but when he died in 1690, they made a bargain with his wife and son to trade
their land at what had come to be known as " Mulliner 's Neck" for a tract of
200 acres in the northwestern section of the town. From then the Mulliner
name is identified with North Branford. So with the name of Thomas Whit-
way, who made no trouble for the early party because his place was in Foxon.
But he also was independent, though some effort has been made to show that
he was with the Wethersfield immigrants.

There are. in the early story of Branford 's ancient church features that
reveal much of the human nature of the planters and their descendants, and
appeal to us today with some little humor. They do not concern the pastorate
of Rev. Samuel Russell, who came to the pulpit of Abraham Pierson the first
in 1686, and remained until his death in 1731. His was truly one of the great
pastorates of Connecticut, and his descendants are among the noblest of Bran-
ford and North Branford. It was in his house in Branford, the most authentic
records prove, that the foundations of Yale were morally and spiritually, and
probably legally laid. He was no small part of the force which brought Yale
eventually to New Haven. He was a man of power and vision, and built as wisely
for all Branford.

But before Pastor Russell there was a church period which reveals some-

332 A MODERN HISTORY OF NEW HAVEN

Ihing of the unformed nature of the community from 1666 to 1686. We are told
hv one authority that Pastor Piei-son provided a successor in the pei-son of Rev.
John Bowers, a graduate of Harvard who had been brought to New Haven
as a teacher, but the further records of his work in Bi-anford are somewhat
indistinct. In fact, it appears that the twenty years between the notable pas-
torates was one in which tlie people indulged in a practice which formerly
deliglited New England chvu-ches, that of candidating. Thei-e were thirteen or
fourteen men in that period, one authority says.

Soon after Mr. Russell "s death began, in 1733, the interesting pastorate of
Rev. Philemon Robbius. He was a man of power and character, we may judge,
but rather advanced, in some respects, for his people and times. For about 1741
arose as nearby as Wallingford certain of a strange sect known as Baptists.
There had come to Mr. Robbins's congregation from Wallingford a lady who
held to that faith, and she brought it about that he was invited to go up and
preach, one Sunday in the following January, to the people with whom she had
worshipped. In the frateimity of his spirit, he went, and preached two ser-
mons. The act came near to being his destruction, as far as Brauford was con-
cerned. It appeals strongly to our sense of the ridiculous that the people of the
Branford Church actually called a solemn council and haled Mr. Robbins before
it on serious charges of having "in a disorderly manner" preached to the Bap-
tists of Wallingford. The act he cheerfully admitted; the disorder they did
not prove. And instead of casting Mr. Robbins out, the result was a firmer
establishment of him in the hearts of tliose of his people who remained loyal
to him. These were not all, however. A substantial number regai'ded his rec-
ognition of the Baptists as a mortal sin, and went away and formed an Ejjiscopal
church.

Mr. Robbins's death in 1781 closed another remarkably long pastorate. In
the next ccnturv' he has had some able successors, among them Rev. Lynde
Huntington in the early period and Rev. C. W. Hill, Rev. Cyrus P. Osborne
and Rev. Henry Pearson Bake in the later. Rev. Thomas Bickford was with
the church from 1889 to 1892, and Rev. T. S. Devitt from 1893 to 1909. He was
followed by Rev. Seelye K. Tompkins, who also was found a wanderer from
the path of conservatism, and not aU of the people followed him fully. There
was not so decided a split a-s at the earlier time, but some who failed to approve
of Mr. Tompkins's ways as to church management rather than as to belief felt
for a time constrained to wor.ship elsewhere. But he had a loyal following, and
his ability seems to have been recognized in his call in 1916 to a large church
in Cincinnati. He was succeeded by Rev. Theodore B. Lathrop, who has proved
a most acceptable leader.

The number, it seems, of those dissenters from the liberal Rev. Philemon
Robbins wa.s not large. Probably before that tliere were those inclined to the
Church of England form of worship, and these and the dissenters joined to
form what has become Trinity parish. The date given is 1748, but it was 1784
before there was an\i:hing but a missionary church, or a church building was

SOLDIERS' JIOXUJIENT. BKAXFORD

THE OLD ACADEMY, liRAXFORD

AND EASTERN NEW HAVEN COUNTY 333

erected. After that was provided in 1786 there was a long succession of rectors,
few of whom remained as much as ten years. In the present period the churcli
has had Rev. Melville K. Bailey, from 1885 to 1891 ; Rev. F. B. Whitcome, 1891 to
1894 ; Rev. George I. Brown, fi-om 1895 to 1898 ; Rev. Henry W. Winkley, 1899
to 1906, and since then Rev. George Weed Barhydt, whose present place of
influence in the Branford community is a commanding one. Its first houses
of worship were, like their neighbors of the time, crude pieces of architecture.
Its present dignified and advantageously situated edifice was built in 1852, and
its jjarish house was added in 1880.

Some embers of a former strife blazed up again when in 1838 some Baptists
from Wallingford proposed to establish a church of that faith in Branford.
There was opposition as soon as they sought a site for a building. For a time
they worshipped in private houses. Their first public baptism was held in the
river near Neck Bridge in 1838, and naturally attracted a crowd. Finally the
town fathei-s kindly consented to let the new brethren build on the site of the
old whipping post on the green, and there they did in 1810. The building was
improved in 1866, and still serves the people. Rev. D. T. Shailer was the first
pastor. There were twenty pastors from him to Rev. P. H. Wightman, who was
there for several years following 1886. The pastor at present is Rev. Walter
V. Gray.

The Congregational Church at Stony Creek was started in 1865, when Rev.
Elijah C. Baldwin was pastor of the mother church. He assisted by preaching
occasionally in the schoolhouse in that district, and a church building was erected
in 1866. The church was formally organized in 1877, and Rev. C. W. Hill was
the first pastor. It has done half a centui-y of constructive work for the village,
and been served by earnest and able men. The present pastor is Rev. A. G.
Heyhoe.

St. Mary's Roman Catholic Church was organized in 1855, though Branford
was not a parish by itself until 1887. In 1876 Rev. Edward Martin was the first
resident priest. The church has grown steadily from the first, and is today
one of the strong congregations of its faith outside of the cities. Rev. T. J.
Murray is the present pastor.

The latest church to be established, dating from 1888, is the Swedish Evan-
gelical Lutheran Tabor, of which Rev. Joseph D. Danielson is pastor.

For its 1,600 children of school age Branford has a complete and modern
equipment. The plant consists of a well equipped High school, seven graded
schools and four schools in the outlying districts which, though of the eountiy
type, are well managed and taught. The superintendent of schools, who is also
principal of the High school, is Herman S. Lovejoy. In the High school he
has a force of seven teachers. In Center district graded school there are eight
rooms, at the Stony Creek school six, at the Canoe Brook school three, and at
Harbor Street, Short Beach, Indian Neck and Saltonstall two rooms each. The
district schools are Mill Plain, Damascus, Paved Street and Bushy Plain.

The board of citizens who direct this school equipment consists of John

334 A MODERN HISTORY OF NEW HAVEN

W. Cuuningham, chainuan ; John Van Wie, 0. C. Kelsey, J. Edwin Braiuerd,
H. R. Allswortli, T. G. Fisher, W. C. Higley, E. A. Kraus, and Charles Reynolds.

There was born on a humble farm just outside of the center of Branford, in
1793 a descendant in the fifth generation from that William Blackstone who
was the first settler of Boston. On that same Branford farm four generations
of Blaekstones before John Blackstone had lived, done their work and given
substance to the town. He lived there all liis life, and died in Branford ni
1886, at the ripe age of ninety-three. He had a son, Timothy B. Blackstone,
who chose a life work that took him outside the old town where his ancestors
had lived so long. At eighteen he began as a rodman in the engineering depart-
ment of the New York, New Haven & Hartford railroad. By the application
of that talent for industry and hard work which he had inherited he rose to
assistant engineer in construction, to division engineer in construction on the
Illinois Central, to chief engineer on the Joliet & Chicago, then to president of
that road. At the age of thirty-five he was made president of the Chicago &
Alton, and held that position for thirty-five years. Then, at seventy, he retireil
to a well earned leisure. It is the brief life storj' of one of Branford 's most
distinguished sons.

That career of success is marked for Branford in a manner that makes
every dweller in the town pridefully bless the name of Blackstone. On an
eminence in the center of the town stands one of the finest library buildings in
Connecticut, one of the most beautiful to he found outside of the largest cities
of the country. It is a Grecian temj^le of the purest Ix-auty, carved from Ten-
nessee marble. Without, the architect, Solon S. Beeman of Chicago, has repro-
duced in classic fidelity the true lines of Ionian art as shown in the Ereehtheum
of Athens in the days of the glory that was Greece. Within, in marble of vary-
ing tints, are wall and pier and arch and entablature, all in rich keeping with
the dignity of the building. It is an edifice whieh has made Branford the praise
of lovers of beauty and art the country over, and can never cease to exei't
its silent influence for the betterment of all who dwell within the town. It houses
a well chosen library of 34,888 books. ,

So did Timothy B. Blackstone, prominent, successful and wealthy man. pay
peerless tribute to the memory of the father whose simple greatness made his
success possible. There have been many memorials, but few that so gracefully
emphasiiie hidden character. The James Blackstone ^leaiorial Library was com-
pleted in 1896, at an estimated cost of $300,000, and Mr. Blackstone provided
•I^^OO.OOO more for its endowment. It is held by the James Blackstone ^Memorial
Library Association, Incorporated, of which the original incorpoi-ators were
Thorwald F. Hammer, Edward F. Jones, Dr. Charles W. Gaylord, Edmund
Zacher, William Regan and Henry W. Hubbard. The trustees now are Dr.
Gaylord, president; Edwin R. Kelsey, secretary; Alfred E. Hammer, treasurer;
Mr. Zacher, Mr. Hubbard and Andrew Keogh, M. A., librarian of Yale Laiiver-
sity. The present Blackstone librarian is Charles N. Baxter.

Two banks serve the business machinery and the thrift of Branford. The

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2. >

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5 H

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h- 1

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K W

AND EASTERN NEW HAVEN COUNTY 335

older of tlieiu is the Brauford Savings, which is known for its sound and con-
servative management, and has three (luarters of a million doliai-s in deposits.
Its president is Charles Hoadley, and its treasurer Wallace H. Foote. The
liranford Trust Company, of which Richard Bradley is president, Henry F.
Jourdan vice president and William R. Foote treasurer, has a capital of $25,0U0
and surplus of $14,000.

Branford the borough was incorporated in 1893. It provides a strong cen-
tral government, and has been managed largely as a business institution. Its
chief executive in 1917 was Valdemar T. Hammer. The town officers tlie same
year were : Selectmen, Louis A. Fisk, John T. Sliney and J. Edwin Brainerd ;
town clerk, Charles A. Hoadley; judge of town court, Edwin R. Kelsey; clerk
and prosecutor of the same, John Fades and Earle A. Barker. The borough
has an eflScient fire department of which Wilson Thompson is chief, consisting
of two hose companies, a hook and ladder company and a chemical engine.

The town has developed in the years a sufficient array of organizations and
fraternities. Its twenty-five include a Masonic lodge, two lodges ^nd an encamp-
ment of the orders of the Odd Fellows, a division of the Ancient Order of Hiber-
nians, a council of the Knights of Columbus, two lodges of the Knights of
Pythias, two lodges of the New England Order of Protection, a lodge of the
Ancient Order of United Workmen and two camps of the Jloderu Woodmen
of the World. There are two temperance societies, the Branford Agricultural
Society, the M. I. F. Benefit Association, Mason Rogers Post, G. A. R., and two
social clubs, the Branford Home Club and the Saltonstall Club.

Branford 's handsome Soldiers' monument, erected on the green in 188;'>,
was provid(>d through the efforts of ]\Iason Rogers Post of the Grand Army of the
Republic, which raised a fund of $5,000 for the purpose. It memorializes the
soldiers who have fought for Branford in former wai-s, but there is a larger
company serving the old town now. Branford had for several decades before the
beginning of this war been the headquarters of a battery of the state's artil-
lery, and this company went out with the others under Captain Carroll C.
Hincks.

Branford 's industries, says the statistician, are agriculture and the manufac-
ture of malleable iron goods. When a single concern employs upward of a
thousand men in a community of some 7,000 people, that covers a large part
of the ground. Branford settlers were farmers at the start, but some of tlieui
began to dabble in iron as early as 1655. They got the idea from the iron they
found in the hills on the shore of Saltonstall. the noble lake on whose heights
Governor Gurdon Saltonstall had his home in the colonial days. The iron miners,
however, gave the name Furnace Pond to what had before that been Great
Pond.

But that wa.s only an incident. An iniinitesimal part of the tremendous
weight of iron which Branford has used Has ever been mined in the town. Gone
along with the iron mines are most of the primitive mills that used to be ou
Beaver Brook. The Branford Lock Works, an industry established in 180f),

336 A MODERN HISTORY OF NEW HAVEN

which fifty years later was the Squire & Parsons Manufacturing Company, has
also disappeared. F. A. Holcomb, who later was a successful carriage manufac-
turer in New Haven, began his industry in Branford in the 'sixties. Ten years
later his factory was used for a while to make safes, but those also are of
the past. So is the shipbuilding yard that used to be at Page's Point. Bran-
ford's coasting trade is a memory, like the days when it was an important port
of entrj", and home port for deep sea sailors. Practically all of Branford 's
oysters are now raised at the Stony Creek side of the town.

So it comes about that though Branford today does more manufacturing
than ever before in its history, it is confined to two concerns. The beginning
of the Malleable Iron Fittings Company was at Page's Point in 1855, when
William II. Periy, William S. Kirkham, John and Samuel 0. Plant, William
Blackstoue, Gurdon Bradley, David Beach and William Wadsworth estab-
lished a factory for the production of malleable iron. It was Rogers & Had-
ley afterward, but in 1864 the present corporation took hold, the far famed
"M. I. F. Co." being formed. At that time the ofiScers were: President, J. J.
Walworth; secretary and treasurer, E. C. Hammer; manager at Branford,
T. F. Hammer; general sujierintendent, R. E. Hammer.

Since then the business has developed enormously in size and even more in
variety. In the heart of Branford,. where railroad communication is most coji-
venient, has been created a model of American manufacturing efficiency. It
has made the significant name of Hammer the slogan of Branford. Without,
the factor}' is an adornment to Branford. Within, it is a dynamo of produc-
tion, a magical transformer of the labor of the towai into an almost endless
variety of useful "fittings" of malleable iron. It is a technical array of product,
but the initiated reckon by signs they can understand that it is mighty excel-
lent. The firm employs in all its departments considerably in excess of 1,000
people, and the business is rapidly growing.

The company is at present capitalized at $125,000, and its officers are :
President, A. C. Walworth ; secretary, J. J. Nichols ; treasurer and general man-
ager, Alfred E. Hammer; superintendent of pipe fittings, Valdemar T. Hammer.

Branford 's other going manufacturing concern is the Atlantic Wire Com-
pany, maker of iron and steel wire. It was established in Branford in 1906
with a capital of .$25,000, and employs between fifty and 100 men. Its officers
are W. E. Hitchcock, president and treasurer; M. F. Hope, secretary.

In strange contrast, this hive of industry is, for a part of the year, also the
abode of the supremest leisure. Branford 's shore, all the way from Short
Beach to Little Harbor, is a delight to the lover of the sea. It has a coast of
infinite variety, indented with creeks and bays, fringed with romantic and rocky
islands, a never failing mine of joy and treasure. As far back as 1852 wayfarers
from far found it, and now dwellers in Branford and New Haven and the
four corners of the earth come to seek its summer paradise. Short Beach,
Double Beach. Branford Point, Indian Neck and Pine Orchard are a few of

CHAPTER XXXVI
STONY CREEK

THE UNIQUE SHORE EES0K11, THE CENTER OF THE QUARRY INDUSTRY, THE OYSTElt
PRODUCING VILLAGE WHICH IS A PART OF THE TOWN OF BRANFORD

For many years the white settlers of Branford dwelt in harmony with the
Indian neighbors from whom the land had been acquired, £ind it may be that
one of the reasons for the harmony was a tacit division of the land. The early
settlers gravitated to some stream. The whites took the mouth of that river
that rises in the heights of Totoket, and most of their habitations, for many
years after the settlement, were along the New Haven side of it, near its mouth.
To their Indian allies they left another and smaller stream — the "stony creek"
that enters the Sound near what is now the southeastern boundary of Bran-
ford. Verily it was a stony creek. Born of one branch in the heights of
western Guilford, of another in the meadows of southeastern Branfoi'd, it
flowed over a rocky bed to the sea. Around it for two miles up from its mouth
are ledges of what looked to the farmer like valueless rock, but its bed and
the shores east and west of where it meets the Sound were and are a treasure
ground of sea food. Fish, but more especially clams and oysters, had, to judge
from the shell-piles, abounded there for centuries before the white man first
viewed the land.

Long before that it seems to have been the happy hunting ground of the
Indian. All the proilucts of that chase by which he lived were there in profu-
.sion. Wild fowl were in its sedgj- creeks and inlets and on its meadows. Deer
and the smaller animals were found there and nearby. His eye for nature's
beauties was not as ours, but that romantic group of islands which lies just
oflf the coa.st did not fail to appeal to him, and around their shores, in his hunt-
ing trips, he may frequently have ventured in his light canoe.

The rocky stream and what lies near it, the supplies of food and those same
"Thimble Islands," make the modem Stony Creek. For all Stony Creek is
divided, like Caesar's Gaul, into three parts, its quarries, its oyster business
and its summer shore and hotel business. Of the features that make these, prob-
ably the islands first attracted attention. There are about twenty-five of "the
Thimbles," counting the islands to which a house might cling, and they are old
in storj' and tradition. The attention of the earliest settlers of Branford was
drawn to them from the tale that Captain Kidd, who scurried through the

338

AND EASTERN NEW HAVEN COUNTY 339

Sound more or less iu the first half eeutui-j' of Branford's existence, had buried
some of his ill-gotten gains on the island which afterward came to be called
"Money Island." Some of the first settlers handed down the st«ry that they had
seen him there ; some had even talked with him. The legend that he buried any
treasure in the vicinity is little credited now; it is entirely possible that the
pirate may have stoppd one or more times for shelter or supplies in some of the
numerous island harbors.

But there are the islands, and they have treasures exceeding any of which
Kidd ever dreamed. They have a beauty of natural scenery, a .romance of
variety, a fascination of sun and storm and sea of many moods, that never cease
to draw and hold, and in these days jaded humans come from far for their
restoration and rest. Long years ago, as a pioneer, Captain William O'Brien
bought Pot Island, and erected a house there. Now there is hardly an island
big enough to give foundation to a dwelling that has not one or more of summer
habitations, while some of them have been transformed by wealth and art into
summer fairj'lands. Their path of the sea is a free highway, and the boatman
or the canoeist may find increasing joy in cruising about their labyrinth. They
are largely responsible for a company of pilgi'ims as large or sometimes larger
than the credited population of Stony Creek, that annually visits cottages or
hotels or boarding places on Stony Creek shore or in the village.

The chief of these hotels is at Indian Point, the Indian Point House, now
owned by Mrs. Martha C. Maynard and conducted by her daughter, Mrs.
Charles Madiera, and her husband. The Three Elms House, just inshore from
this, is owned by Mrs. Maynard, and was formerly luider the same management.
In the village are the Brainard House, a summer hotel, and the Bay View Inn,
an all-the-year house. At Flying Point there is the Plying Point Hotel, and
at Money Island the Harbor View and Money Island hotels.

The story of Stony Creek's quariy industry, which makes the abiding sul)-
stance of the village, is a storj' of the settlement itself. As a portion of the
Branford agi-icultural community — there is some good farm land to the north-
west of the village — it began very early. There is pretty definite record of the
settlement there, as a pioneer in 1671, of Francis Norton. There were Nortons
among the original settlers from New Haven, and the presumption is that he came
from tliat way. But William Leete, who appeared to the eastward of him only
two years later, undoubtedly came from Guilford. In the company of others
who came soon after are the names of Richard Butler, farmer, Abraham and
William Hoadlej', Frisbie, Barker, Palmer, Ilowd, Rogers and Rockwell.

So they spread all over the southeastern part, of the town, and increased.
By 1788 there were so many that Stony Creek, as it seems to have been called
almost from the first, was made a school district. Not all of the settlers were
farmers ; some were fishermen. Still others were sailors, some of them on deep
waters. Stony Creek shared with Branford, for a good part of the nineteentli
century, the prosperity and distinction of a Sound coasting port.

No doubt the early settlers had some hazy notion that Stony Creek's stones

340 A MODERN HISTORY OF NEW HAVEN

were valuable, but it was not adequate. They lived on through the eighteenth
and nearly half of the nineteenth centuries mostly by farming and fishing, hav-
ing little conception of the broader commercial possibilities that lay in their
land and ott' their shoi-e. For oysteriug was in those days no more than a local
industry, if it was any industry at all. The coming of the Shore Line railroad,
about 1850, was the beginning of Stony Creek's awakening. Before this, no
doubt, the people had realized something of the value of the stone that was in
their ledges, but there was no market for it at hand, and no means of transporfc-
ing it to far markets. The railroad changed all tliat, and the outsiders who
came with it were not long in discovering the quarry possibilities of the place.
They did not for some time, however, realize the high quality or rare value of
Stony Creek's peculiar granite deposits.

There were, soon after 1850, some operations for the quarrying of the stone.
Most important was that of B. 6. Green, who in 1858 developed a quarry and
operated it for al)out fifteen years, employing at one time as many as fifty men.
But the first operation on a large scale seems to have been that of John Beattie.
Stony Creek was not to have the credit of his work, however. He commenced
quarrying at the far eastern conier of the village in 1870, and finding a good
quality of stone, did an extensive business. But that district was set off to
Leete's Island in Guilford in 1882, and all of the extensive Beattie work has
gone for a Guilford industry.

In 1875 the fii'st strictly local operation was commenced on the east side
of the town, about a mile north of the railroad. A superior vein of stone was
discovered, which seems to have been largely responsible for making widely
famous the Stony Creek product. A few years later granite from this quarry
was used in a part of the construction of the capitol buildings at Hartford and
at Albany, New York. A system of spur tracks was laid from this plant down
to the railroad. Tlie necessity for this was largely obviated when in 1893 the
course of the railroad through Stony Creek was moved farther northward.

The quarry business still conducted under their name was established in
1S88 by the Norcross Brothers of Worcester. Here a superior product was
found, and a corporation with a quarter of a million dollars of capital now em-
ploys several hundred men in the getting out of finished stone. It is red granite
of an especially beautiful variety which is produced at this quarry.

The following year a concern known as the Branford Granite Company, but
said to have been financed largely by Brooklyn capital, opened a quarry on the
west side of the creek. It employed at one time from 100 to 150 men, but this
business has been absorbed by the two quarry companies which survive.

The other of these besides Norcross Brothers is the Stony Creek Red Granite
Company, organized by Samuel Babeock of Middletown. It has found abun-
dance of a high class granite, and does a prosperous business. There was for-
merly still another quarry industry, which flourished for a time, the Totoket
Granite Company, which found a handsome grade of pink granite.

But though the number of individual concerns has diminished. Stony Creek's

AND EASTERN NEW HAVEN COUNTY 341

quarrj' intlustry was never so prosperous as now, and every year finds the supe-
rior quality and workmanship of its product more widely known. The stone
taken out here is of brilliant beauty, and much of it takes a high polish. It has
been in high favor especially for monumental purposes where miusual attrac;-
tiveness is desired, while for buildiug purposes the gray and white granite of
Stony Creek goes, in quantities of hundreds of tons, all over the country.

Even more famous are Stony Creek oysters. Long ago the oyster industry
ceased to be a simple matter of raking up oysters from the sea bed, culling
them and placing them on the market. But that Stony Creek has kept up with
the times and the science of growing oysters the reputation of the bivalves
bearing the name of the village proves. They go all over the country, and com-
mand the high prices of the product that has fame. The largest gi-ower and
dealer is the Stony Creek Oyster Company, with a capital of $42,000, of which
Henry I. Lewis is president, Maud H. Smith secretary and Frank E. Smith
treasurer. Charles E. Smith, of Flying Point, is another large gi'ower and
dealer.

Stony Creek has a somewhat distinct community life. In 1874 it was made
the second voting district of Branford, the territoi-y included being about a mile
and a half square. It has had, as noted, its own church for over half a century.
Even its shore and summer places seem to be its own, and though there is no
rivalry with the town which includes it, Stony Creek has a certain individuality.
It is prosperous through certain highly developed industries. Little farming
industry is included within its district now, most of that being of the market,
garden variety, to supply those who cannot farm for tliemselves, or the summer
visitors. Tlie latter make Stony Creek, for nearly six months of the year, a
very busy place. The population of the hotels and cottages, the shore and the
increasingly inhabited islands, makes use, in the season, of all the resources
the village can supply.

From two directions terminating trolleys have had considerable effect on
Stony Creek. The line from New Haven, now a part of the Connecticut Com-
pany's system, came through Branford and to the eastern side of Stony Creek
late in the 'nineties. This makes a very close connection with Branford, with
all the shore places, with New Haven. It has helped not a little in Stony Creek's
prosperity. From the other direction, the Shore Line Electric Railway Company
built in 1910 a branch line from the center of Guilford by the shore route almost
to Stony Creek village. It was the intention, or so it was announced, to have
these lines connect, and make a continuous shore route from New Haven to
Guilford, but the thing has never been done.

CHAPTER XXXVII
HAMDEN

TOWN OF MANY PARTS TFIAT ALMOST SURROUNDS NEW HAVEN, ANCIENT PLACE OF
MANUFACTURES, MODERN SUBURBAN AND AGRICULTURAL TOWN

It is not true that from New Haven "all roads lead to Hamden," but the
traveler who would not find it so must avoid at least four of the principal high-
ways leading from the city, three of the street railway lines and one of the rail-
roads. For that reason it seems to envelop New Haven, though that is mostly
a seeming. Stretching to the north, the northwest and somewhat to the north-
cast of the smaller town of New Haven is a long, broad, rambling town of
thirty-two square miles. It is over eight miles from its southern to its northern
point. In width at its broadest point it is six miles. Topographically it is oth-
erwise peculiar. From its far northwestern corner, a point which seems to the
Now Havener unexplored territory, where the southwestern point of a height
known in Cheshire as Mount Sanford juts into the town, its boundary rambles
now southwest and then southeast until it strikes the West Rock ridge, to which
it adheres as a magnet to a piece of soft steel, until it comes upon Pine Rock, a
modest height of 271 feet. Then, as if warned that it must not pass, it stops
short, and leaves West Rock for New Haven.

At the northeast, it was ordained tha