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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."