USA > Connecticut > New Haven County > New Haven > A modern history of New Haven and eastern New Haven County, Vol. I > Part 38
Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28 | Part 29 | Part 30 | Part 31 | Part 32 | Part 33 | Part 34 | Part 35 | Part 36 | Part 37 | Part 38 | Part 39 | Part 40 | Part 41 | Part 42 | Part 43 | Part 44 | Part 45 | Part 46 | Part 47 | Part 48 | Part 49 | Part 50 | Part 51
316
A MODERN IHISTORY OF NEW HAVEN
increasingly self confident, well governed borough of West Haven. Its people live, many of them, in New Haven for business purposes through the day, but they are loyal to the place of their homes. The borough has its well equipped fire department of five companies, its competent police system, and is gradually getting what it has long needed, a sewer system.
West Haven's industry started when the community was young, and grew up with it. As early as 1853 the West Haven Buckle Company was a promising concern, and has continued up to this time, now employing fifty people, and capitalized at $17,000. In 1876 the Parmelee Piano Company, of which the late Henry F. Parmelee became the head, built a factory on lower Campbell Avenue. Later, under a partly changed ownership, it became the Mathushek Piano Com- pany, and put out an instrument that won a wide and favorable reputation. A dozen years ago the business was discontinued, and the factory, with the excep- tion of a brief use for automobile manufacturing, remained vaeant until S. R. Avis & Sons took it over in 1914 for the manufacture of gun barrels. They now have $100 000 capital, and employ over 300 people. George R. Kelsey formed the American Buckle & Cartridge Company in 1883, and Israel A. Kelsey was its president and treasurer in 1890.
New Haven makes a somewhat unsnecessful effort to claim the Hall Organ Company, which has a wide reputation as a maker of church organs, but as a matter of fact its factory is in West llaven. Other strictly West Haven indus- tries are the Alderhurst Iron Works and the Yale Iron & Stair Company, orna- mental and structural iron work ; the Sanderson Fertilizer & Chemical Company and the Connecticut Fat Rendering and Fertilizer Company, fertilizers; Walter R. Clinton, gasoline engines; the Cameron Manufacturing Company, automo- bile parts; the West Haven Manufacturing Company, hack saws and frames; the Western Electric Company, telephone supplies; the Wire Novelty Manu- farturing Company, wire novelties; John Wilkinson, confectionery.
West Haven has one financial institution, the Orange Bank & Trust Com- pany, with a savings department. It is capitalized at $25,000, and has savings deposits of $326,929. Its president is Watson S. Woodruff.
11
Many years ago there was, at the point where the broadening mouth of New HIaven harbor curves inward to make a shallow bay to the east of Oyster River and Bradley Point, a lonely rock, or group of roeks. In those days of its first discovery it was wholly or partly covered by a growth of living green. The newcomers from the Old World immediately saw that the juniper shrub which made the rock evergreen was like to what they had known in old England as "savin" -- the Sabine herb of the ancient Latins, as indeed it is allied to it in family. How early this was called Savin Rock one cannot say, but the histories tell us that General Garth and his red coated invaders landed at Savin Rock in 1779. Probably the rocky cliff had a more than incidental interest to the early
SAVIN ROCK, NEW HAVEN
317
AND EASTERN NEW HAVEN COUNTY
settlers of West Farms. It was their lookout to sea. There the "breaking waves dashed high" in winter or in storm. Savin Roek was a landmark.
But it seems to have been from New Haven that Savin Rock really was dis- covered. To confess the truth. New llaven had and has rather poor picking of shore front close at home. The harbor front has been a muddy, shifting thing rather than a bathing beach, and for some decades past the discharge of sewage has made it worse. The seeker of inviting seashore had to go well down toward the mouth of the harbor. And somehow the west shore was the first to be dis- covered. Traveling down that shore, the first point that seemed to have anything to satisfy was the old juniper-covered rock.
So it came about, gradually at first, then with a rush. that Savin Rock was New Haven's amusement resort. As early as 1867 the street railway reached West Haven center from the city. and a few years later the demand of pleasure seekers had extended it to "the Rock." For thirty years more the summer travel to that shore grew steadily, but slowly. Merry-go-rounds came to the aid of nature. The peanut man came to hear what the wild waves were saying. and to make a penny by his wares. Other aids to amusement of the primitive type appeared. Bathing facilities were developed, though to make bathing attractive on alnost any of the beaches near Savin Rock nature needs a great deal of assistance. Savin Rock became popular, and people sought its breezes increasingly as relief from summer heat as the size of the eity grew.
Looking back now, it seems that this era of development ought to be disre- garded. For the real making of what is now known as Savin Rock came with a rush soon after 1900. The slow growing amusement resort had located itself. not precisely at the Rock, but on the flat a little to the east of it, where the sea- ward view leaps over mud flats which seem at low tide to make walking all the way to Long Island feasible. But it wasn't with the seaward view that the exploit- ers of Savin Rock especially concerned themselves. They worked on the theory that the average pleasure seeker would find a lot more fun in spending his money to ride on flying horses, in shattering his nerves on a "dip of death " or a "shoot the chutes" than in listening to the less expensive voice of the mur- muring sea. It wasn't all theory. either, for these promoters had received their education at Coney Island or Far Rockaway. They would make Savin Rock a Connectient Coney Island, and gather many shekels.
They have done it. That was the time when the "White City" sprung up in a night. as it were. with its wonderful electric tower and its crystal mazes and its chutes and its numberless side shows and, presently, its moving picture theaters. Spaee within its gates was only for the elect of the concessionaires- those who would pay high. And it was at first expected that the people would also pay high just for entering its charmed portals-and give up all the rest they had except their earfare after they got in. But the scheme didn't work to perfection. For there were enterprising amusement promoters who found it cheaper to get space in the grove and on the streets outside the charmed city. and there they put up flying horses and Ferris wheels and Old Mills and soda
318
A MODERN HISTORY OF NEW HAVEN
and pop-corn and peanut stands. Then there were started daily band concerts in the park outside the White City. And a good share of the publie was content to stay outside. So the gates of the White City were made toll free, and the people go in and out as they will, and spend or not, as they please. But most of them please to spend somewhere. Savin Rock is the Mecca-the term is not used loosely or merely figuratively-for summer multitudes not only from New Haven, but from Bridgeport, from the allied cities of the Derby region, from Nangatuck and Waterbury, Meriden and Hartford, and from all points to the eastward. It's a great place to see summer life, and still more favorable for study of the high art of separating man-not to mention woman-from his money.
This summer flood has made no small police and fire and exeise problem for West Ilaven. It has not always been solved in the best way. But with experi- ence the borough authorities seem to improve. However, there is obvious need for more powers and some improvements that only a municipality can have. West Haven suffers from Savin Rock ; it also profits from Savin Rock. The lat- ter condition is so positive that nobody is likely to volunteer much aid in help- ing West Haven meet its difficulty.
LA
THE WHITE CITY. SAVIN ROCK, NEW HAVEN
CHAPTER XXXIII
WALLINGFORD
.
EARLY LIFE OF THE MOTHER TOWN OF MERIDEN AND CHESHIRE-ITS CHURCHIES, SCHOOLS AND SOME OF THE MEN WHO HAVE MADE IT
On the eastern border of New Haven County, just above the point where the boundary line of the county turns eastward for five miles to take in the towns of Guilford and Madison, is an irregularly shaped town of 37.4 square miles. It was called Wallingford when it was set off from the New Haven tract in 1670, from Wallingford in Berkshire County of Old England. Today it has a popula- tion estimated at more than 12,500 people, of whom upward of 10,000 are included in a borough district which occupies about a twelfth of the area of the town. In that borough is the dynamie force of Wallingford-its manufacturing force. For Wallingford, older than Meriden, was independently one of the important points of origin of the silver shaping and plating industry, and retains one of the largest independent silver plants of America. There are some indus- tries of note outside the borough limits, but in the main the part of Wallingford which lies outside the borough is farming country, good and well improved.
Less positive in its natural features than the towns to the south and north of it, Wallingford has its unmistakable character of topography. It has the grandeur of the shadow of Mount Carmel, which rises clear to its southern bor- der. At its far eastern point it has in Besick Mountain a height almost as great- 700 feet, on account of which, partly, the Air Line road had to belie its name and make a detour into Durham through Reed's Gap, as it leaves Wallingford. It has diversifying heights all over its surface, except where at the south it slopes off toward the plain of North Haven. And through it from north to south flows the Quinnipiae River, there a substantial stream, with possibilities of water power which have by no means been neglected. Today it is an agreeable com- bination of manufacturing and agricultural community. an example of New England pluck, enterprise and prosperity in their most commendable forms.
Colonial Wallingford was a territory of distinguished size. For it was a large part of that second New Haven purchase from the Indians, which ran, as it was roughly deseribed, ten miles north and south along the Quinnipiae. and extended about eight miles east and five miles west from the river. Original Wallingford. therefore, included the territory from the North Haven and Bran- ford upper lines northward to that east and west division of Meriden which
319
320
A MODERN HISTORY OF NEW HAVEN
was the " Mason and Dixon line" between the colonies of New Haven and Hart- ford, and westward from the eastern boundary of the county to beyond the western side of Cheshire. Meriden was earved from this territory in 1806, and Cheshire was taken in 1780, leaving still a town of substantial size. It had 2.325 people after the second parting. That number did not "boom" in the following decades, but showed a steady, consistent growth which is like Wallingford. By 1850 it had become almost 2,600, but sueh was its centralization that its people felt the need of forming a borough government. This they did in 1853, making Wallingford the sixth borough to be formed in the state.
The colony of New Haven was just entering its fourth deeade when it sent ont the pioneers who made Wallingford. That first year, which was 1669, they called the place "New Haven village." Only a year later the legislature ineor- porated it as Wallingford. That pilgrimage, like the first, was led by a minister, Rev. Samuel Street, and he and his followers brought with them the spirit of church dominanee that prevailed in New Haven. Thirty-eight heads of families were in the party, and there was a systematic allotment between them of the land then included in the township. each getting six aeres.
These names have been preserved, not only in the histories, but in the making of a noble town of the true New England character. Not a few of them were substantial members of the Davenport-Eaton colony, eoming over on the Hector or arriving soon afterward. Among them is the name of Thomas Yale, father of Elihu, and we understand from that why Yale as a family name is more con- spienous in Wallingford than in New Haven. There was also the Eaton name, still found in Wallingford. Hall was represented by two families, and has lost nothing in the passage of the years. In the course of that progress has come the Lyman Hall who signed the Declaration of Independence as one of the dele- gates from Georgia. Abraham Doolittle, Samuel Cooke, John Brockett. Nathaniel and Jermiah and Zachariah How, John Merriman, Nathan and Samuel Andrews, Samuel Munson, Eleazur and John. Peck, are a few of the others to make up the founders, or, as they were formally called the "planters," most of them well represented in the town today.
They were Puritans, and religious worship was the center of the community. But they seem not to have hastened, as did John Davenport's followers, to the building of a meeting house. In Rev. Samuel Street they had a faithful leader, and they were for several years able to find places in their homes where they could gather. So it was not until 1675 that the church was formally organized, and three years later that they decided to build the first meeting house. That, when completed, was but a bare building twenty-four by twenty-eight feet, of the very primitive type. The fact that seven years previous to this, in 1671, the planters were taxed to secure funds to provide an ordained minister would indi- cate that the work of Mr. Street ceased before that. He was the first of a line of distinguished pastors, including such men as Rev. James Noyes, in the years from 1789 to 1830, Rev. Edwin R. Gilbert, from then till 1874, Rev. C. H. Diekin- son. Isst to 1893. Rev. John J. Blair, 1894 to 1903. Rev. John Burford Parry
-
POSTOFFICE, WALLINGFORD
HIGH SCHOOL BUILDING, WALLINGFORD
321
AND EASTERN NEW HAVEN COUNTY
came to the church in 1911, and for six years thrilled the people of the congrega- tion and community with his splendid and inspiring leadership, leaving regret- fully at the call of the large Hope church in Springfield. Rev. Edwin G. Zellars has succeeded him in favor of the church and community.
Primitive as it was, the first church building served for almost a century. In 1771 it was replaced by a much larger one of three stories, which for almost another century was the "First Church of Wallingford" in more senses than one. In 1869 this was replaced by the present noble building on Main street, an example of the best of its type of New England church architecture, and a credit to the town.
The beginnings of the Church of England worship in Wallingford go back to 1729, but it was nearly three decades later that there was an Episcopal church building. Meanwhile, the small number of Episcopalians in town had shared with their brethren in North Haven the "Union Church" on Pond Hill. The first building in Wallingford was in 1758, and had the distinction of what was doubtless the first church organ brought to Wallingford. With all other Episco- palians the Wallingford people suffered the setback which the Revolutionary war brought to their form of worship, and it was well toward the end of the cen- tury before they got on their feet again. What is now known as St. Paul's, the outgrowth of that church, is now occupying its fourth building, its present digni- fied and churchly structure having been erected in 1869. The rector is Rev. Arthur P. Greenleaf, who is also in charge of the church of St. John the Evan- gelist in Yalesville, the only other church of this faith in town.
Baptist beginnings were also found very early. The attitude which the "orthodox" church took toward that faith must have made their path thorny in 1735, unless Wallingford was more liberal than most other Connecticut com- munities. But though their church was organized at that date, 1817 is given as the date of the foundation of the First Baptist, whose spire now pierces the sky in the center of Wallingford. This steeple, however, was not added until 1847. It still holds, presumably that bell which Lord Wallingford of England gave to the church in 1817. The pastor in 1917 was Rev. W. T. Thayer. There is a Baptist church at Yalesville of which Rev. C. W. Longman was pastor in 1917, and a Hungarian Baptist in the borough, organized in 1914, whose pastor is Rev. Michael Fabian.
The start of Methodism in Wallingford is comparatively recent, and the first church to be organized was not in the borough, but in Yalesville. It is called the First Methodist and was started in 1867. There is also a First Methodist in the borough, organized in 1895. The pastor of the former is Rev. William C. Judd, and of the latter Rev. John Moore.
As with many of the other denominations, Catholicism had its beginnings considerably before there was strength for a church. It was in 1857 that a chureli was organized and a building erected on North Colony Street, that being the building which was found in the path of the memorable tornado of 1878. Rebuilt in 1887, it is now the Most Holy Trinity Church, of which Rev. John H. Carroll Vol. 1-21
322
A MODERN HISTORY OF NEW HAVEN
is pastor, one of the strongest churches in Wallingford. The St. Kazimir Polish National Church was organized in 1915, and is doing a good work under Rev. Joseph Solstyiak.
One of the live congregations of Wallingford today meets in the Advent Church, of which Rev. Henry Stone is pastor. Incorporated in 1880, it has for almost four decades been doing an able work in the community.
There is a llungarian Reformed Church, of which Rev. Bela Kovaes is pastor, and a single synagogue of the faith of Israel.
Early Wallingford had the "church on the hilltop"; the "schoolhouse in every valley" followed not far behind. In 1719 there were three schools, the minimum number, it would seem, for so scattered a community as the then undivided town was. They were open to the service of the parents of the town only on payment of a fee, and gave the crudest sort of instruction. Neverthe- less. they were the foundation for the six grammar and six district schools which the town has today, in addition to its handsome High school. The esti- mated value of the plant is now a quarter of a million dollars, and $60,000 is the annual expenditure for the free education of Wallingford's 2,872 children of school age. John W. Kratzer is superintendent of schools and acting principal of the High school.
Wallingford has a private school, college preparatory for boys, which has won success by deserving it-and the 'success is marked. The Choate School now has a wide reputation for high class and thorough instruction, and its loca- tion is in many respects ideal. Its head master is George Clare St. John, with a corps of eighteen assistants.
Wallingford has a federal building of unusually attractive architecture, com- pleted at a cost of $95,000 in 1913, and standing at a prominent point on South Main Street. For securing it so soon, and securing so fine a building. Walling- ford thanks first Senator Orville H. Platt, and second its own honored citizen, Charles G. Phelps, formerly his secretary at Washington, now the secretary of the Manufacturers' Association of Connecticut, always an active worker for the good of his beloved town. A postmaster and assistant, four clerks. seven local and three mounted carriers distribute from this center Wallingford's mail to borough and town.
Its age as a borough by this time has given Wallingford effective experience in municipal management, and there are few communities in the state that are better governed. Nearly a decade ago it attacked in earnest the problem of per- manent paving, and has now to show for its intelligent effort upwards of ten miles of asphalt, briek, tar and water bound macadam pavement, an equipment to be matched by few boroughs of its size. It has a motorized fire department, consisting of a chemical engine company, two hose companies, a hook and ladder and a volunteer company, of which the chief engineer is John J. Luby. There is a municipal water supply plant, constructed in 1882, which conducts water by gravity, mainly from Pistapaugh Pond, four and one-half miles east of the borough, and Lane's Pond, the two together having a capacity of nearly
HOLY TRINITY CHURCH, WALLINGFORD
323
AND EASTERN NEW HAVEN COUNTY
600,000,000 gallons. There is also an auxiliary pumping station of a million gallons' capacity. The borough has its publiely owned electric light and power plant, of which it is highly and justly proud. John E. Martin was warden of the borough in 1917.
Wallingford has an adequate number of banks which for efficient manage- ment, substanee and security are the match of any. The First National, with a record of over thirty-five years behind it, is capitalized at $150,000 and has a surplus of $50,000 more, over 800 accounts and deposits approaching half a million. In its foundation and management have been associated some of the most substantial men of Wallingford, such as Samuel Simpson, W. J. Leaven- worth, the late Judge Leverett M. Hubbard and Frank A. Wallace, the present head of the R. Wallace & Sons Manufacturing Company. The Wallingford Trust Company is the youngest of the banking institutions, with $50,000 capital, well equipped to do a trust and savings business. Its president is Lewis M. Phelps and its secretary and treasurer C. Leslie Hopkins. The Dime Savings Bank, in existence sinee 1871, is a conservatively managed but most successful institution which well testifies to Wallingford's thrift. By the last report it had deposits of $1,698,250. Its president is Henry I. Peck and its treasurer Edwin C. Northrop.
Wallingford, beautiful for location, has been chosen as the site of the masonic Home of Connecticut, which is delightfully situated on the west hills of the town, where a fine building was completed in 1897. It now has several additions, and grows with its requirements. The wards of Connecticut Masonry eould hardly have better surroundings or management.
One of Wallingford's state-famous institutions is the Gaylord Farm Sana- torium, which serves all New Haven county as a private plaee for the treat- ment of tuberculosis. Originally due to the initiative of Wallingford people, its excellent management has attracted serviee and gifts from many wealthy persons of county and state, and under the skillful direetion of Dr. David R. Lyman it is reckoned the state's best private institution of the sort.
Wallingford has a well equipped and attractive public library, established in 1881, and condueted by the Ladies' Library and Reading Room associa- ton, of which Mrs. G. Frederick Hall is president. The library had 13,717 vol- umes in 1917, and has substantial additions each year. Its librarian is Miss Minnie E. Gedney.
There are some forty-six fraternities, societies, clubs and similar organiza- tions. Among them are four bodies of the Masonie order, three of the Odd Fellows, four courts of the Foresters of America, two divisions of the Ancient Order of Hibernians, one couneil of the Knights of Columbus, one aerie of the Eagles, one tribe of the Red Men, a lodge of the New England Order of Pro- tection, one of the endowment rank of Knights of Pythias, one of the Royal Arcanum, Wallingford Grange, three temperanee societies and Arthur H. Dut- ton post, G. A. R., with its woman's relief corps. There are two prominent. clubs. the Wallingford Club and the Wallingford Country Club.
324
A MODERN HISTORY OF NEW HAVEN
In a community which for years has made it a conscientious custom to eele- brate the nation's birthday in a sane and thoughtful manner, one expects true patriotism as a matter of course. Wallingford's Fourth of July events have become widely famous. So, in the crisis of war, Wallingford has never been found wanting. It is through hundreds of soldiers, sailors and other war workers carrying on its share of the nation's great struggle with all its heart. It has had its one military company since 1871-Company K of the Second regi- ment that was. At times in its existence it has been known as the Wallingford Light Guard, but in all its history it has been composed of good soldiers. They are good soldiers still, honoring their state at the front. The company went out in the fall of 1917 under the command of a captain from another town, but with Lieut. Dana T. Leavenworth of Wallingford.
And Wallingford can never lack distinction among the towns of America in the war so long as it is remembered that Major Raoul Lufbury, premier of American airmen on the fighting front, owns the town as his home.
It is forty years since Wallingford's calamity, as great as it was sudden, made it nationally famous at a cost too dear. There are thousands living in almost all parts of the country who instantly associate the name of Wallingford with "the great tornado of 1878." Even compared with the now familiar tor- nado or cyclone of the western plains, this held and still holds a bad eminence. The valley in which the borough lies is especially subject to violent summer storms. With hardly more than the usual warning, at 6:15 on the evening of Friday, August 9, 1878, a rushing, twisting blast of wind, followed by torrents of water, swept southeast across the town. It visited especially what had been "the community" seetion, but did not wholly miss the center. It was over in a minute and a half, though the delnge lasted for ten or twelve minutes. When it had passed, twenty-nine persons were dead (another died within a day or two), thirty-six were more or less seriously injured, and thirty or forty dwell- ings, with an uncounted number of barns and smaller buildings were unroofed or laid low, while two or three times that number were more or less damaged. The largest building destroyed was that of the Most Holy Trinity Catholic church on North Colony Street, which was wholly demolished. It was a ter- rible experience for a town of 4,500 people, and Wallingford shudders over it yet.
Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.