USA > Connecticut > New Haven County > New Haven > A modern history of New Haven and eastern New Haven County, Vol. I > Part 25
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This canal was to run from the tide waters of New Haven harbor through Farmington to Southwick, Massachusetts, with a branch along the Farmington River through New Hartford to the north line of Colebrook-which branch, by the way, was never built. Some other features of the project, as laid ont on paper, and never appearing anywhere else. materially add to the interest with which it may be viewed now. What was dug was a small part of a grand pro- ject. The eanal was to keep on northward to the state line, there to conneet with the Hampshire and Hampden Canal (also to be constructed) in Massa- chusetts. That, on its part, was to be continued northward along the west bank of the Connecticut River, crossing it at Brattleborough into New Hamp- shire, and thence, sometimes in Vermont and sometimes in New Hampshire, it was to push up till it made connection with the waters of Lake Memphrema- gog. From there, naturally, it would be easy to reach the St. Lawrence. New Haven was to be made a port only a little less important than an ocean terminal. The Erie Canal was to be made to look like a fishing ereek.
There it was-all but the money. The report of the preliminary survey was that it would cost $420,698.88. This must have been for the Farmington-New Haven part. Of this amount the Mechanics Bank of New Haven subscribed $200,000. The City of New Haven did not come in at the first, but later sub- seribed $100,000. The citizens of New Haven ultimately put down $122,900. Financiers in New York City, in the course of the process, had faith enough in the plan to risk $90,000. In Farmington 125 shares, or $12,500 were taken. The rest, up to a total of $541,400, was made up by small investors along the line of the eanal.
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And so the ditch was dug, the beginning being made at Granby on July 4, 1825. This seemed a proper occasion for the celebration of the nation's in- dependence, and the proposed independence of all primitive and restricted means of transportation by the people between New Haven and Farmington. Two or three thousand people were present to observe the taking of the first spadeful of earth from the diteh with suitable ceremony. Captain George Row- land navigated a barge up from New Haven-this was a land boat drawn by four horses. The Declaration of Independence was read, and the Hon. JJona- than E. Lyman of Northampton, Massachusetts, gave the oration of the day. Before that Governor Oliver Wolcott made an address and handled the spade for the main ceremony. About two years later the last spadeful was taken out with less ceremony, and water was let into the canal at Cheshire. Even the in- credulous Connectient Courant admitted and faithfully recorded that "three boats and a cannon" had navigated the canal from the Sound as far north as Cheshire.
This was late in November of 1827. Little further seems to have happened until the following June. Then, amid great glorification, a canal boat named James Hillhouse was launched at Farmington, and that far inland town seemed to have realized its dream. At the same time the father of the New Haven elms, who had also in a sense been the father of the canal, was suitably honored. IIe was also the first president of the company. By this time the rest of the digging had been completed, and there was a diteh, soon after navigable, all the way from Southwick Ponds to Long Island Sound.
The joy of the inhabitants at this consuunnation seems to have been so great that about all they would let the canal do for the rest of that year was to carry excursion parties. All that summer its banks resounded with one glad, sweet song. The stanneh canal boat JJames Hillhouse, plainly marked on the stern "Farmington Canal." even if it lacked the no less notable inseription "For Southwick and Memphremagog" which the aforementioned boat on wheels carried, made many trips up and down the narrow but gladsome channel bear- ing gay parties of merrymakers. Late that fall it seems to have occurred to those interested that it was about time to devote the expensive diteh to busi- ness, and boats carrying real freight commenced to be towed up and down. It became "the port of Farmington." Travelers came that way, and the fame of the town spread far. This was only a reflected light from New Haven. to be sure, but New Haven, being then in reality what a distinguished engineer later ealled it in so many words, "the key to New England." was content.
So for three or four years everything went as merrily as a marriage bell with one exception-the thing didn't pay. This may not have seemed a very es- sential drawback to anyone along the line except the comparative few who had invested money, but they began to show concern. The historian casually remarks that as early as 1828 "the company labored under great embarrassment from the want of funds, and suffered from freshets and from the work of ma- lieious individuals." Funds began to fail considerably before the essential con-
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strnetion was completed. About this time the city of New Haven came to the hoped for rescue with its subscription of $100,000, but that did not suffice. A finaneial alliance was made with the Hampshire and Hampden company of Massachusetts. In one way and another funds were found to complete the canal to Westfield, and then to the Connecticut River. But it was a new venture, and the managers lacked experience. The railroads were rivals rather than auxiliaries, and the Connecticut River still flowed on its independent way.
The upshot of it all was the formation of the New Haven and Northampton Company in 1836. It took over all the stoek of the Farmington Canal Com- pany, and for the following ten years struggled, with all the added capital it coull gather, to make a go with the canal. But in 1838 the railroad was opened between New Haven and Hartford, and in 1846 the New Haven and Northamp- ton Company was in self defense forced to obtain a charter for a railroad. It was a comparatively simple matter to lay rails on the towpath of the canal, and in 1848 this was done as far as Plainville. Presently trains were running as far as Farmington, and a few years later the road was completed to Northamp- ton.
IlI
The short-lived canal went dry, of course, soon after the railroad came, ex- cept at points where the water would not readily run off. There it remained an intermittent waterway, according as the season was dry or wet. One idly wonders how many mosquitoes the old ditch bred in its day, after it had ceased to serve its original purpose. It was utilized, as far as the borders of New Haven, as a subway for the railway. But in the upper part of Hamden, par- ticularly Mount Carmel, it has been up to the present time an eyesore and at times a nuisance. The money of a few dug it ; the many have been obliged to fill it up at their own expense. As a canal, it is mostly gone now, but its marks remain in many places.
The development of water transportation from and to New Haven consider- ably antedated the coming of the railroads. There is mention of the penetration of Robert Fulton's triumph to this port as early as 1815. Some nine years later the New Haven Steamboat Company was chartered to run a line to New York, and soon after 1824 three boats were running regularly. There was no railroad to New York until 1844. so a working agreement between the Hartford and New Haven Railroad and the New Haven and New York steamboat line was de- sirable. It was made in 1838. Meanwhile, other lines had been opened, con- spicnous among them the Starin and the Propeller lines. There was marked competition to get the comparatively few passengers of those days, so that the rate of fare from New Haven to New York fell to twenty-five cents, and even, for a short time, to half of that. This did not last long. The opposition lines either took up the more profitable business of carrying freight. or formed a working agreement. The New Haven Steamboat Company, now for a score of years and more an adjunet of the railroad, has been the steady, reliable means
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of water transporation to New York. Of late years it has had practically the whole business. New Haven's maritime transporation has not tended to inerease. With opportunities surpassing those of Bridgeport, New London or Stonington, it has remained in the somewhat narrow transportation channel of a single line to New York. Other ports have branched in many directions, notably in the matter of excursion or pleasure boats. New Haven, and this means New Haven people, have failed of support for shipping of this sort. In the nineties, there was now and then a small excursion steamer to Bridgeport, to some of the Bran- ford shore resorts or the "Thimbles," or now and then to a Long Island point. But their life was short. Between 1910 and 1915 Lucien Sanderson, as a large part of the Long Island Navigation Company, tried to maintain a daily line, for about three months each summer, between New Haven and Port Jefferson, Long Island. He had a most comfortable and attractive vessel, the New Elm ('ity, competent to carry passengers, freight and the far reaching automobile. But the support was, for most of the time, too slight to balanee the expense, and in 1915 the venture was abandoned. When the war eame, Mr. Sanderson sold the steamer. Since then, as for some time before. the chief water excursion excitement of the people of New Haven has been the tempestuous voyage be- tween Lighthouse Point and Savin Rock.
In the year 1840, there were 117 miles of railroad in the state of Connectieut, of which the only road touching New Haven, that running between this city and Hartford. constituted about one-third. This road was opened in 1836, hav- ing been chartered in 1833. As has been said, steamboat eonneetion made it continuous to New York. Railroading was in its infaney, and was a somewhat precarious experiment, not cordially trusted by either financiers or travelers. This may account for the fact that not until 1844 was a line built on to New York. Meanwhile, as we have seen, the Northampton line had been hastened into existence by the eanal.
That was the beginning of the New York, New Haven & Hartford Railroad. The building of the line to New London followed hard after. Then there was the connection to Derby and with the Berkshire division from Bridgeport north- ward. The "Air Line," which was supposed to connect New York with Boston by such a route as the erow would take, came along shortly after. This com- pleted New Haven's railroad radiation with lines under at least six different ownerships. The amalgamation which followed was inevitable. It was about 1872 that the railroad became the "Consolidated," though the absorption into it of all the lines touching New Haven was not complete until a little after that.
There was a contest for a time as to the center of this system. Between the struggles of the New York and Hartford and Boston financial interests for the honor and advantage of being the headquarters of the company its heads were fain to compromise on New Haven. In spite of all that the jealous terminals or even Hartford eould do about it, it became, by almost common aeeeptanee, the "New Haven road." There was a more than aeeidental or sentimental reason
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for this. New Haven is the key to the system. It is an important part, and will continue and increase to be. Freight will here be transferred from water to rail comunication, and New Haven is the key which unlocks the ways to western Connecticut, Massachusetts, Vermont, Lake Champlain and the St. Law- rence, northern and northeastern New York, Boston, Maine and Halifax. So in New Haven the "Consolidated" road-the title is mostly displaced by "New Haven" now-erected its $400,000 central office building, and will some day, New Haven hopes, ereet its million-dollar home station.
The railroads which this system now operates, or with which it is affiliated, have a mileage. if the Boston & Maine is counted in, of exceeding 3,000 miles. They cover every part of the states of Connecticut, Massachusetts and Rhode Island, and extend through the most important part of Maine. The three states first mentioned have an area of 14,555 miles. Their population at present is estimated as approaching six millions of people. Of these a million or more are employed in manufacturing, the total of their annual wage is over six hundred millions of dollars, and the annual value of what they produce is only a little short of two billions of dollars. Most of these people, much of their prod- uet, the system of railroads which centers in New Haven is called on to move. It is the most congested, severely tried, complex system in America. Such are the facilities of this system -- or such they were before abnormal conditions brought it close to paralysis with the breaking of the great war-that freight could be brought to New Haven from the farthest bounds of the nation and from other countries of North America, or distributed from the center to any part of the continent. without change of cars or rehandling of packages.
More than a decade ago, with all the main lines double-tracked, the railroad four-tracked the line from New Haven to New York. This was followed, a few years later, by the electrification of the New York system. It was the intention to continue this in the direction of Boston, as well as to extend the four-track lines, but many plans have been interrupted in the past year or two. Among these was the electrification of some of the other lines leading out of New Haven.
Nobody guesses, in these days, much about the future of railroad ownership or management. But whatever it shall be, New Haven's situation assures to it an increasingly important place in that commerce which the railroad brings. Its harbor is being steadily improved, though much remains to be done. Into and out of it go .more than 45.000 vessels a year, bearing treasure worth $350,000,000. Among the items are such things as a billion and a quarter tons of coal, 220,000,000 tons of iron, 1,400,000 feet of lumber, almost 100,000 tons of oysters, 140,000 tons of miscellaneous merchandise. The railroads that pass out of New Haven carry in a present normal year approximately a billion tons of mer- chandise, rolling on 120,000 cars, and bring in about half as much.
The past three decades have been the period of modern street railway de- velopment in New Haven. In 1888 there were five lines of horse railways in the eity. The first of these to be built was the Fair Haven and Westville, which connected the far corners of the town about 1860. That was a toilsome trip of Vol. I-14"
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almost five miles, and a great achievement of local transportation. It long re- mained the important street railway of the city, and still is one of the main arteries. In the following five years West Haven became sufficiently important, and Savin Rock so attractive, as to demand a second ear line. The same year a line was constructed out Whitney Avenue past the lake and on, soon after, to Centerville. It was manufacturing development that demanded this. Then came the State Street line in 1868, and the line to Allingtown, afterward known as the Sylvan Avenue line, in 1872. The Dixwell Avenue line was built a few years later.
Then the ultimate seemed to be accomplished, and New Haven did nothing more with street railways, except to moderately extend these lines as the traffic demands grew, until 1891. Then dawned the electrie era. The first electrie line in New Haven was practically new road, though it followed the State Street line from the Green as far as the corner of State and James streets. Thence it ran down James to Lamberton, out Lamberton to Ferry and thence to the foot of Ferry. Out of this came, shortly after, the extension to Morris Cove, then to Lighthouse Point. The first part of this road, equipped with the then successful trolley (a preliminary experiment with storage battery cars having proved a failure ), was opened about 1891. The old West Haven line, with some improved connections, was about this time acquired by a company of which Israel A. Kelsey was the moving spirit. The lines already operated were electrified, and new lines were built from City Point through the center and out Winchester Avenue to the great factory. In connection with this, about 1896, the Edge- wood Avenue line was built, entering Westville over a continuation of what had been Martin Street, now renamed, all the way from its beginning at Park Street, between Chapel and Ehn, to its ending at Forest Street. Edgewood Avenue. The Fair Haven and Westville soon followed after this with electrification. Its line, some years after that, was extended from Fair Haven east up through North Haven to Wallingford, where a connection had already been made with Meriden.
The other developments were mostly those of expansion. Fair Haven and Westville lines had been built on East and West Chapel streets before the road's absorption in the Connectient system. The Whitney Avenue line was extended, in 1902-4, on from Centerville to Mount Carmel, and then to Waterbury by way of Cheshire. Previous to this time a new line had been built to Derby, pass- ing by Yale Field, and in 1904-5 this was carried on through Ansonia, Seymour, Beacon Falls and Naugatnek to connect with the Waterbury line. The Con- nectieut Company had absorbed the whole system in the meantime. and soon it also took in the New Haven connections of the Conneetient Railway and Lighting Company. This gave New Haven connection with Milford. Stratford and Bridgeport and the intervening shore resorts. Along the east shore from New Haven there was a line through East Haven, Short Beach and Double Beach and Pine Orchard to Branford and Stony Creek. Finally eame the Shore Line Electric Railway, then and still an independent company, giving New
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Haven continuous trolley connection with North Branford, Guilford, Madison and the other towns along the shore as far as the Connectiont River, running also up the river as far as Essex and Chester.
One may travel now, by way of New Haven, continuously by trolley from New York to Boston. Or again by way of New Haven, he may go from New York' along the Connecticut shore to New London or Stonington, then, turning northward, go on to Boston by way of Putnam and Worcester. New Haven thus becomes one of the most important trolley centers in the east, and seems destined to grow in importance with the growth toward perfection (a growth just at present greatly to be desired) of the system of electric railway trans- portation. New Haven's trolleys connect with Bridgeport and the intervening towns; with Waterbury and intervening towns by two routes, via Derby and Cheshire ; with Meriden, with Hartford, with all the towns to the northeast and east of the city. They form the popular and convenient pleasure and business route to and from the city, and make a large part of its life and commerce.
IV
But the messengers by water or by rail have proved too slow for this swift age. Other means of communication have materially contributed to the strength and efficiency of the modern New Haven, and in their development the city has had a peculiar and important part. The electric telegraph had come to New Hlaven, as to other eastern communities, at about equal pace with the railroad. The Atlantic cable, which eame within a few decades afterward, has an interest, if not for New Haven specifically, at least for the New Haven district, for the father of Cyrns West Field, who laid the cable. was born in Madison when it was East Guilford. and the Field connection with this section was more or less closely continued until recent years. New Haven had the telegraph service in increas- ing extent. and has it more than ever now. Its nerves of wires go to all the world, and are increasingly used to run its business and serve the needs of all its people.
In the early development of another communication medium of prime im- portance New Haven had a conspienous and continuing part. Neither Connecti- ent nor New Haven had anything to do, so far as is known, with the invention of the telephone, but here, as many well know, was established the first com- mercially operated, working telephone exchange, forty years ago. New Haven was the first community to make the telephone a reality.
So common an instrument of everyday life is the telephone now, and so familiar a textbook is its directory, that the first list of subscribers of the "New Haven Distriet Telephone Company" is to most persons a genuine curiosity. When early in 1877 the Connecticut legislature granted a charter to George W. Coy to establish a telephone company in New Haven, with a capital of $5.000, the state did not take particular notice. Here was a move by some visionary. But in the first month of the following year Mr. Coy and his associates com-
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pleted plans for their New Haven service, and the exchange was opened in a store on the first floor of the Boardman Building, at the corner of State and Chapel streets, on February 21, 1878. The switchboard was less of an affair than many a business concern now has for its department exchange. There were just forty-seven subscribers, and their names were printed in large type on one side of a seven by nine sheet of paper. No numbers were attached. . The "centrals" --- there must have been a foree of two of them, one for night and one for day-remembered without difficulty how to "plug in" for their less than half a hundred subscribers, and it is unlikely that the wires were very busy in those first few months. It was a business institution mostly. The list included twelve residences, three physicians, two dentists, eight "miscellaneous," seven- teen stores, factories and the like, four meat and fish markets, two hack and boarding stables. It might be considered in a sense an honor roll, and it is well to record it here :
Residences-Rev. John E. Todd, J. B. Carrington, H. B. Bigelow, C. W. Scranton, George W. Coy, G. L. Ferris, HI. P. Frost, M. F. Tyler, 1. II. Bromley, George E. Thompson, Walter Lewis.
Physicians-Dr. E. L. R. Thompson, Dr. A. E. Winchell, Dr. C. S. Thomp- son, Fair Haven.
Dentists-Dr. E. S. Gaylord, Dr. R. F. Burwell.
Miscellaneous-Mercantile Club, F. V. McDonald Yale News, Police Office, Postoffice, Quinnipiac Club. Register Publishing Company, Smedley Brothers & Company. M. F. Tyler Law Chambers.
Stores, Factories, etc .- C. A. Dorman, Stone & Chidsey, New Haven Flour Company, State Street, Congress Avenue, Grand Street and Fair Haven stores, English & Mersiek, New Haven Folding Chair Company, H. Hooker & Com- pany. W. A. Ensign & Son, II. B. Bigelow & Company, C. S. Mersiek & Com- pany, Spencer & Matthews, Paul Roessler, E. S. Wheeler & Company, Rolling Mill Company, Apothecaries' Hall, E. A. Gessner, American Tea Company.
Meat and Fish Markets-W. H. Hitchings, City Market; George E. Lum, City Market. A. Foote & Company, Strong, Hart & Company.
Hack and Boarding Stables-Cruttenden & Carter, Barker & Ransom.
This was a start, but not a paying one. The nature of the list of subscribers might indicate that a few of the substantial citizens of New Haven took the telephone seriously, but this was not a support on which a profitable business could be maintained. Something must be done to increase the income, and the managers sent out a thousand eirenlars explaining the service in detail, and appealing to New Haven for support. It is related that out of that effort was realized a net result of one new contract, even at the very moderate rates then prevailing.
The switchboard, which was operated at first only between six a. m. and two a. m., was in the beginning a very crude affair. Making a connection with a subscriber was not a rapid process, and when three connections had been made, that ended the extent of communication until somebody rang off. "Wire's
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Busy" would have been an almost constant condition but for the fact that people had not learned how to use the thing, and conversations, compared with now, were brief and far between. Aside from this, connections were bad, the use of the instrument difficult and results often indistinet and unsatisfactory. It is almost impossible for one who knows the telephone only as it is today, with its prompt, easy and accurate service, to imagine what that primitive, pioneer system was like.
But we have before us now abundant proof that it wasn't a failure. It lived because it had a mission. It won snecess by deserving it. And New Haven remained the scene of its development and growth. Those who had an interest in the success of the telephone as an instrument, we may suppose, carefully watched over the matter of its working in those early days, but the success of the business institution which has served the people of Connecticut for forty years is due to the ability and hard work of citizens of New Haven. George W. Coy, to whom the first charter was granted, is not easily recalled. He early associated with him Herrick P. Frost and Walter A. Lewis, both of New Haven. But the man at the practical end in those first days was John W. Ladd. He was plant man then, and he is the only man in the company's service now who has been with it from the beginning. He is now general claim agent.
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