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Gc 974.602 W394w 1774433
M. L.
REYNOLDS HISTORICAL GENEALOGY COLLECTION
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ALLEN COUNTY PUBLIC LIBRARY 3 1833 01105 5776
HISTORY OF WEST HAVEN, CONNECTICUT
Compiled by
Workers of the Writers' Program of the Work Projects Administration in the State of Connecticut.
Sponsored by
Connecticut State Library, James Brewster, State Librarian.
Co-sponsored and published by Town of West Haven.
1940
.
1774433
HISTORY OF WEST HAVEN, CONNECTICUT
1648 - 1940
صحية
10 18 1 -19
Aerial View of the Town of West Haven, Showing Shore Line, from Sandy Point to Savin Rock
1.7
"ARMISTICE" World War Memorial on the Central Green
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Writers' program. Connecticut.
985
846887 ""ITistory of West Haven, Connecticut, compiled by workers of the Writers' program of the Work projects administration in the state of Connecticut. Sponsored by Connecticut stato library, James Brewster, state librarian. Co-sponsored and published by town of West Haven. [West Haven, Conn., Church press] 19.10.
5 p. 1., 93 p. front., plates. 2632.
Folded map laid in. On cover : ... 16-18-1940.
1. West Haven, Conn .- Hist. I. Title.
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41-53205
Library of Congress - Copy 2.
F104.W37W7
M 172
Copyright [3] 974.67
THELF D
Copyright 1940 by TOWN OF WEST HAVEN, CONNECTICUT
FEDERAL WORKS AGENCY
JOIIN M. CARMODY, Administrator
WORK PROJECTS ADMINISTRATION F. C. HARRINGTON, Commissioner FLORENCE KERR, Assistant Commissioner VINCENT J. SULLIVAN, State Administrator
CHURCH PRESS
WEST HAVEN, CONN.
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FOREWORD
As First Selectman of West Haven, I am happy indeed to have had a small part in the compilation of this volume, the first history of our Town.
On behalf of our citizens, I wish to thank the many individuals who have contributed to this en- deavor.
May the written record of our "Friendly Town" be an inspiration to us all to continue the onward and upward growth of our Community, State and Nation.
CHARLES F. SCHALL.
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ADVISORY COMMITTEE
CHARLES F. SCHALL
ROBERT J. HODGE
E. C. BRADLEY
JAMES B. SMITHI
LEWIS H. WARNER
CLIFFORD NORTII
CLIFFORD WHITEHEAD
JOSEPH E. MILLER
GARTNER WV. CASELTON
HUGHI M. GRAHAM
FRANK M. SHEEHAN
EARLE BECKWITHI
WILLIAM H. H. BROWN (deceased)
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CONSULTANTS
Hubert H. S. Aimes
Miss Mary Andrew (of Orange)
Howard Beach The Rev. Roy D. Boaz Newton Bradley
John F. Lynch J. Ernest Marr Mrs. Frank Nason Miss Ora Mason (Librarian) and staff James Middleton (deceased) Frank H. Mildeberger
Catherine Cameron Lloyd J. Cameron James P. Cannon Henry J. Conlan
James Mills
Edward E. Minor ( Water Co.)
John D. Northrup Miss Alma Pagels
William Cox
The Rev. Arthur C. Flandreau
George Leete Peck
Robert W. French
Charles Reiners ( deceased)
Edward Granfield
Frederick Russell
Seth G. Haley
Miss Ethel L. Schofield (New Haven Colony Historical Society)
Frank Harlan
Mrs. Frank Smith
Fred Heenie
John K. Stevenson
Miss Bertha Hubbard
Mrs. Frank Terrell
John Hubbard
Mrs. Clarence Thompson, Jr.
Pauline Juelich
George K. Traver
The Rev. F. S. Kenyon
George E. Tucker
Frederick Levere
Harry W. Tuttle
Lee Usher
John F. Tiernan John M. Loomis
Franklin A. Lum
Elmer Scranton
Judge Henry A. L. Hall
PREFATORY NOTE
THE WEST HAVEN GUIDE is one of a series of many guide books to states, cities, regions, and metropolitan areas prepared by the Writers' Program of the Work Projects Administration.
A unit of field workers, composed of Byron A. Guthrie, Supervisor; Louis R. Tierney, Walter L. Carleton, Edwin K. Banta, William J. Barry, Goodrich M. Bennett, and Hans 1. Wieland, under the direction of two-State editors, has gathered the material, and the book has been written to conform with the wishes of the West Haven Advisory Committee appointed by First Selectman Charles F. Schall.
As no history of the town had ever before been written, the work of gathering the facts has required painstaking search through Colonial records, old diaries, private papers and the records of individual local organizations. In this work the Writers' Project is indebted to, and grateful for, the generous and cordial cooperation of residents and officials who have placed at our disposal many valuable old records from private collections and town vaults.
Many facts and much data of historical importance in this book came from the painstaking notes recorded by Harry I. Thompson. The son of Silas Thompson and Minerva (Smith) Thompson, Harry 1. Thompson was born in West Haven, Jan- uary 31st, 1840. He attended district school on the Green and in 1853 studied at the academy of R. Quincey Brown. In 1856 Mr. Thompson was a clerk in the store of Trowbridge and Thompson. He served as West Haven Postmaster from 1861-64 during the Civil War era. A painter of considerable talent, Mr. Thompson maintained a studio from 1865 to 1870. Some of his portraits of Connecticut's Governors hang in the State Capitol at Hartford, others in the Congressional Library in Washington. He married Miss Annie Bruce on Christmas Day, 1866. In 1872 he was clerk of the West Haven Congre- gational Church. From October 1st, 1873 to July, 1877, he published "The West Haven Journal". Mr. Thompson died in West Haven, April 24th, 1906.
THE CONNECTICUT WRITERS' PROJECT.
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WEST HAVEN
GENERAL INFORMATION
Residential-Industrial Community in New Haven County. Incorporated · June 24, 1921; area taken from town of Orange.
Arca-7,204 acres.
Population-1940 census : 29,970.
Taxation- 2318 mills ; grand list (1939) $52,590,224
Transportation-Trolley connections with New Haven; through bus service to New Haven and Bridgeport. Freight service by New York, New Haven, and Hartford Railroad.
Airport-Emergency field : T. J. Warner Farms, Jones Hill.
Through Highways-Milford Turnpike, US 1; Jones Hill Road, State 162. Shore Road; State 122; Derby Turnpike, State 34.
Accommodations-Tourists houses (several AAA approved).
Information Service-Police Department, Town Hall.
Recreation-Two motion picture houses; 4.3 miles of shore front with three public beaches; Yale Golf Course ($30 annual dues, $2 guest privi- lege) ; Oyster River Golf Course, Jones Hill Road ($15 annual dues, 50c green fee) ; Painters Park (6 tennis courts, 3 baseball diamonds, etc., free) ; salt-water fishing, private streams for fresh-water fishing; numerous parks.
Annual Events- (1) May 30, Memorial Day Parade and Exercises.
(2) June 14-Elks Flag Day.
(3) Nov. 11-Armistice Day Service (American Legion).
(4) Dec. 24-Christmas Carol Community Sing.
(5) Dec. 26-30-Doorway Decoration Contest.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
WEST HAVEN TODAY
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ALONGSHORE IN WEST HAVEN 2
THE BACK COUNTRY
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HISTORY OF WEST HAVEN ()
THE EARLY SETTLEMENT
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REVOLUTIONARY WAR AND THE BRITISH RAIDS
13
THE SECOND BRITISH RAID
15
WAR OF 1812
16
INDUSTRIAL DEVELOPMENT
18
THE TWENTIETH CENTURY
25
WEST HAVEN INDUSTRY
28
WEST HAVEN OYSTER INDUSTRY
41
TOWN GOVERNMENT 41
WEST HAVEN FIRE DEPARTMENT
52
MEMORABLE FIRES
57
WEST HAVEN POLICE DEPARTMENT 60
EDUCATION 63
68
CHURCHES
79
PARKS, PLAYGROUNDS, AND ATHLETIC FIELDS
82
WEST HAVEN INSTITUTIONS
WEST HAVEN FRATERNAL, CIVIC, AND SOCIAL ORGANIZATIONS
86
WEST HAVEN NATIONAL GUARD
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MAP OF WEST HAVEN .
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WEST HAVEN TODAY
Skirting the southwestern border of New Haven, on slightly rolling land that slopes down to New Haven Harbor and Long Island Sound, the thickly settled community of West Haven, with a long main shopping street, focuses on the Green in traditional Yankee style.
Heart of the town since sheep first grazed on this "common land" almost three hundred years ago, the spacious and carefully tended Green is a heritage for future generations, a reminder of the stirring days when Minute Men gath- ered at the summons of the town drums to defend the village against disembark- ing Redcoats. Tall elms at night cast a dark border about the flood-lighted statue of a World War doughboy holding his helmet aloft, symbolic of Armis- tice, and, away in the shadows of the old church-yard, crumbling slabs of sand- stone mark the resting place of the men and boys who gave their lives attempt- ing to stem the British invasion in 1779.
Essentially a residential suburb of New Haven, though supporting a num- ber of substantial manufacturing plants, West Haven presents a cosmopolitan aspect. Fine highways crisscross the township, and, through the northerly por- tion, the busy Post Road, US 1, carries a heavy traffic night and day. At the center, a diversity of modern shops meets the most discriminating demands for all variety of goods, from fresh green groceries to fashionable frocks and hats.
The quiet remnants of the older town linger bashfully at the edge of the swirling traffic of the new. A sedate old seventeenth-century dwelling often is overshadowed by a modern apartment house. The jigsaw era left its mark on the residential area in gingerbread cornice decorations, hanging above the fancy turned balusters of the wide verandas of yesteryear. Even the horse-block sometimes remains at the edge of the curb where a sleek motor car stands.
With its well-lighted, clean, and orderly streets, shopping and theatre crowds, departing and returning commuters, and, on the Sabbath, thoughful folk on their way to and from church, West Haven may seem to the passerby, just another suburb. With familiarity the picture changes. Despite its position in the metropolitan area of New Haven, West Haven is, at heart, still a Yan- kee township. Voters take a personal, and often vehement, interest in town affairs ; the first selectman is either "Charlie" or "Bill" to practically all of his callers ; parents take an active interest in school affairs, attending in large num- bers not only Parent-Teachers' meetings but school dances and other social gatherings ; and a returning native is almost sure to find "everyone in town" at the large bowling alley where scores of local clubs hold weekly tourneys. Even the trolley service is geared to a fast-disappearing era. Many of the older mo- tormen in the employ of the Connecticut Company, who pilot the cars which carry thousands of West Haven residents to and from work, personally greet their customers each morning, and are often overheard asking, "Has Johnny got a job yet?"; frequently they halt the car at a deserted corner to wait for an
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HISTORY OF WEST HAVEN
accustomed passenger, who a few seconds later comes racing down the side street, buttoning his coat.
Borrowing culture from the older city of New Haven, stamped with the conservatism and thrift typical of New England, West Haven also has the mod- ern attitude and energy of a comparatively new community. Coming of age in 1921, with its own row to hoe, the town has developed a civie consciousness and intends to keep up with the changing times.
The socio-economic pattern of West Haven offers a varied picture. A modern tire factory operates not far from the site of an old grist mill. A mod- ern electrical-supply house stands on the very ground where an old shop once turned out wooden sewer pipe. On the spot where the British raiders landed for their march to New Haven, the brilliant lights of a lively shorefront amuse- ment resort flash white against the sky. Neon signs glitter and cast their weird lights on the sidewalk within sight of the historic Green.
The town is young enough to have a zoning ordinance and old enough to enjoy political battles and tales of kidnapped fire engines, whisked away during the days of volunteer fire-fighters. Oldsters spin lively yarns of the political past, or, half-dreaming over a bowl of clam chowder, talk of shipping and fisheries.
A teashop invites patrons to a very old house, or a lobster palace near the shore sets out a repast to "swing" music. Parades are popular; Christmas carols with the flavor of old England are sung in the church and on the Green, and the memories of balloon ascensions are still bright in the minds of the older resi- dents.
Graves in the old cemetery where the patriots lie are kept trim and green. Men of the Continental Line rest peacefully beside soldiers of the Army of the Potomac. The World War days are fresh, gallant memories, as the memorial on the Green testifies. All members of the Grand Army of the Republic have answered final muster, but the American Legion, the Disabled American Vet- erans, and the Veterans of Foreign Wars have taken over and keep Memorial Day as their fathers did.
Campaigning and Election Day, Thanksgiving Day with the home-coming throng, the Christmas holidays, Memorial Day, and July Fourth with their flurries of music and exercises, are observed by West Haveners with especial zeal.
Red Cross and Christmas seal drives have a way of going over quota in the community. The Chamber of Commerce is wideawake and active, as the many industries in town indicate. Church, civic, and fraternal organizations func- tion with a minimum of inside politics, because West Haven airs its views and settles its controversies at Town Meetings, in the approved democratic manner.
ALONGSHORE IN WEST HAVEN.
From the easterly salt meadows, where transient picnic parties arrive in trucks to enjoy their "day at the shore", to Oyster River with its cleaner sands,
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Ward-Heitman House, Elm Street; Rear ell, Once Used as a Schoolroom
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Collins House, Main Street; West Haven's Most Outstanding Old House
WEST HAVEN TODAY
a four-mile waterfront drive offers variety ranging from the quieter residen- tial areas to a lively amusement park with every facility for recreation. Wind- ing in and out, passing a freshwater stream coming down to meet the sea, or a cottage settlement trim with green lawns and fresh paint, this drive is a dis- tinctive community asset. Cooled by sea breezes in the hottest day in summer, smooth, wide and well-policed, the waterfront is probably West Haven's most popular area.
A boatyard, with marine railway and other facilities for storage, repairs, and outfitting, is a beehive of activity just before the season opens. All man- ner of craft, all types of owners, are found here. The odor of fresh paint, oakum, and hemp, the steady knock of calking hammers and the rasp of scrap- ers, drift downwind any spring week-end, as the boats are made ready for the sea. With a flavor of the old days about the place, this boatyard attracts both adult and juvenile visitors who are not actually boatowners.
An itinerant kite peddler ties varihued airplane or box kites to the cat- tails in the open lands and awaits motorist customers, while sea gulls wheel overhead and survey the colorful array. Offshore, dozens of mallards are some- times seen rising and falling on the waves like a flotilla of destroyers lying in wait for an enemy fleet.
First Avenue taps this area from the northward, a shady street bordered with arched elms and clean, green lawns. Winter problems of snow clearance are lessened by the warmer breezes from the sea, and, in summer months, gay awnings decorate piazzas built for use and not ornamentation. Perhaps to com- bat the effect of the salt air, but more likely because of home owners' pride in their community, more fresh paint is in evidence here than in many residential districts of inland towns.
Between the beach and the highway, a wagon that never moves from one spot is headquarters for a peddler of Rhode Island and Maine clams. Custom- ers must bring their own paper bags, but the regular trade gladly does so, and sometimes furnishes a few extras. With a dog for company, this interesting character shares the solitude with the sea gulls, sometimes spinning a yarn for a crony or gazing out to sea, where the line of surf impatiently pounds the har- bor breakwater.
Offshore about two miles, three great breakwaters, providing protection for New Haven Harbor, were built as the result of the efforts of Congressman N. D. Sperry, for whom the Sperry Light on the western breakwater was named. This light, no longer in operation, has been replaced by an automatic revolving red light. On the middle breakwater are two continuous white lights; and, on the western tip of the east wall, the New Haven Light marks the entrance to New Haven Harbor.
Beside the shore road are many older houses, once the homes of prosper- ous folk who came here to live beside the sea. Slowly, year by year, these for- mer residences give way to the concessions and mercantile establishments of the pleasure resort to the westward.
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HISTORY OF WEST HAVEN
At Savin Rock, a busy resort area, known as "The Coney Island of Con- necticut", are many hotels and restaurants where shore dinners may be enjoyed at the water's edge. Skating rinks and dance halls cater to carefree throngs. Special busses bring loads of happy pleasure seekers. High against the sky, lined in incandescent tracery, tower the roller coasters. Red neon signs glow over inviting entrances to lobster and soft-shell crab emporiums; soft drink signs and giant ice cream cones invite trade in shops where bright metal and spotless white tables glitter under the glare of giant bulbs. Boxing fans attend fightcards of exceptional quality and midget autos race for record crowds.
Westerly from Savin Rock's amusements lie the rocks from which the area takes its name; the point of debarkation for the men from Tryon's fleet of Brit- ish raiders. Within the shadow of the varicolored lights, this lookout point rises from the otherwise level shoreline and provides an eminence from which the early settlers once watched for returning whalers and sealers. Dwarf cedars and sprawling junipers, known as Savin Trees, covered these rocks.
Bradley Point, jutting out into the Sound, is one of West Haven's delight- ful beaches. Both summer cottages and year-round residences have been built in this section. Colorful beach attire, brightly painted canoes, lawn and beach furniture in gay color schemes, create a varied pattern on the flat, white sand.
At Cove River, a town bathing beach provides opportunity for a cool, clean swim for those residents without a cottage or beach of their own. Vendors in white, selling ice cream cones or soda pop, and sometimes a popcorn peddler's cart, frequent the spot. Captain Michael Hammond, who conducts a retail fish market here, is a veteran fisherman and fondly recalls the days when he operated a small fleet of his own. Children and their mothers, young people excited at their freedom from school, all gather at Cove River during the season.
Continuing westerly along the shorefront, rounding the point once called Oyster River Point, now, Aimes Point, the highway swings into the cove where Oyster River meets the sea. A West Haven community beach here, well policed and carefully safeguarded, is usually crowded with merry bathers in sea- son.
From the flow of Oyster River, shellfish once received just the amount of fresh water required for their best growth. Fisherfolk dragged their nets here, and the little ( denial hops rode at anchor awaiting loads of farm produce In the New York market or the West Indies trade.
The West Haven sl: , a beau. ful southern boundary for the broad 7,204 acre township.
THE BACK COUNTRY
Behind the town itself, gently rolling hills offer many vantage points for a panoramic view of Long Island Sound, the township, and, on clearer days, even the island itself. Stone fences divide rolling upland pastures and brushlots, with here and there a trace of the old rail fences, built of split chestnut. Gray birch, sweet fern, red cedar and low huckleberry bushes cover many of these hills, with
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Hubbard House in Hubbard Lane; It's Most Curious Feature is the old "Slave Table"
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Theodore J. Warner House in Jones Hill Road; Building Had Secret Hiding Place For Smuggled Goods
WEST HAVEN TODAY
an occasional planting of red pine on "water company land", the watershed of the several lakes.
From Burwell Heights in Allingtown, the city of New Haven spreads out to the eastward, backed by East and West Rocks. Benham Hill is another look- out point from which prominent structures on Long Island can be seen on a clear day. Jones Hill, Shingle Hill, and many unnamed knolls and hummocks vary the topography of the township.
Sometimes a farmer makes a crop on small acreage or plants his grapevines at the very door. An agrarian of the old school shocks his corn in the fields in the tepee-like shape so common in Connecticut, and a pile of golden pumpkins or bronze-green squash often nestles at the foot of these stacks, indicative of the use of even the land between the corn rows.
Old farmhouses, usually of white clapboarding with green shutters and blinds, stand back from the road with their collections of barns, silos, corncribs, and chicken coops near by, conveniently located for service during the long winters when the snow is often deep. In the barnyards at milking time, cattle patiently await the coming of the hired man.
On top of fence or stone wall, a black and white or calico cat dozes peace- fully, while a flock of Plymouth Rock hens scratch in the chip dirt near the woodpile. "Fresh Egg" signs swing from fencepost or maple shadetree, invit- ing the passerby to purchase and replenish the farm woman's slender purse of "pin money".
Chief Anawon's braves once hunted through this district, seeking venison and bear steaks when they tired of a diet of succulent oysters or clams. Some- times, after the spring plowing, farm lads discover flint and quartz arrowheads, and often the rabbit or pheasant hunter may be seen exercising his dogs in these rolling fields and brushlots.
No longer are the country roads muddy and rutted. The annual funds for dirt road improvements are ample to eliminate the last of the rough, narrow thoroughfares. There are now 27 miles of paved roads in West Haven. The remaining 100 miles of highway are 80 per cent hard surfaced with asphalt and sand. Distances fade before the transportation facilities of the motor age, and already tidy bungalows, erected by people who get their income in the city, are changing the face of the back country.
Rural Connecticut at its best ; the metropolitan area at the very gate of the farm country and croplands ; expansive views of the Sound from a rolling coun- try that offers good drainage and elevation above the dampness and mists; these are a few features that will influence the growth of inland West Haven. The back country will, one day, become entirely residential, but now the farmer lingers, raising his crop on land close to one of the best markets in the country.
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HISTORY OF WEST HAVEN
THE EARLY SETTLEMENT
The history of early West Haven is that of New Haven, for this district was a part of that town until 1822. Then, with North Milford, it was incor- porated as the town of Orange. Not until 1921 was West Haven established as a separate town.
Soon after the New Haven settlers had laid out and cleared the original nine squares of their city and erected their houses, they turned their attention to dividing the remainder of the land they had bought from the Indians. The purchases gave them title to land stretching five miles west of the Quinnipiac, in other words, approximately to Cove River and the foot of the present Alling- town Hill. A subsequent purchase from the Indians on May 20, 1645, extended the territory but involved New Haven in a long dispute with Milford, as both claimed to have purchased the same land.
The territory now included in West Haven stretched northward from shore flats of wild, coarse marsh grass rising in gradual slopes to thickly wooded hills. These untouched acres offered great promise to the newcomers. The sea swept into many tiny coves, to join the sweet water of brooks that offered sanctuary to mink, muskrat, and beaver. Where the fresh water diluted the salt, shellfish grew in great abundance and the shallows offered an easy opportunity to set fish traps and pounds. Beyond the marsh lands and the meadows, the dark for- est provided game and a sufficient supply of timber for building cabins and ships.
When the first settlers cruised along the shore of the district they discovered a shallow bay where Oyster River empties into the Sound. Partially protected, this bay offered excellent oyster fisheries and soon became a popular spot. Easterly from this little bay, beneath a mantel of living green, stands a guardian group of rocks where the fisherfolk and landsmen established a lookout. These rocks were covered by stunted, wind-whipped cedar shrubs and junipers, stubby trees of the type called "savins" in England. Thus, this lookout became "Savin Rock".
Before the white men came to New Haven, the Indians had a settlement at Wigwam Neck on Wigwam Creek, not far from the site of the present West Haven Green. The early Dutch traders came to buy furs and hides at Sandy Point; on the west bank of West River, an extensive shell heap had accumulated from the oyster and clam shells left by Schagticoke, Podunk, and Tunxis Indians on their annual trips to the shore to feast on shell fish.
New Haven colonists first used their lands in this district as pasturage for their cattle. Along the shore they cut salt hay and harvested oysters and clams.
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