USA > Connecticut > New Haven County > New Haven > New Haven, a book recording the varied activities of the author in his efforts over many years to promote the welfare of the city of his adoption since 1883, together with some researches into its storied past and many illustrations > Part 25
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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 | Part 52 | Part 53 | Part 54 | Part 55 | Part 56 | Part 57 | Part 58 | Part 59 | Part 60
I cannot help feeling that we were rather ungracious in so deeply branding the Irish as "foreigners" when they first began to "come over" about 1825, since men of their race had fought so gallantly with us only a few years before in the Revolutionary War. One of the greatest heroes of the War of Independence was an Irishman-General Richard Mont- gomery, whose name rang everywhere in the Western World up to his untimely death before Quebec in 1775.
The Irishmen who took prominent parts in our Revolution- ary struggle were of a different class from the Irish laborers who came here half a century later. Green and uncouth, these new citizens were strong, willing to work, and light-hearted. Their ready and abundant humor added incalculably to the life of a community devoted to trade, interested in religion, and disposed to take itself far too seriously. A bogey feature of the situation was, that these new citizens were all staunch Catholics and adhered to their religion with a faith- fulness which might well have shamed the "town born" Protestants. All New Englanders of that time had an ingrained fear of Rome, and resented the building of Catholic Churches and the appearance of Catholic priests on the streets. I am bound in truth to say that persons of the rigidest New England traditions viewed the Episcopalians with almost as much dread as the Roman Catholics. The haute noblesse of 1850 was mostly Congregationalist.
It looked down upon Methodists and Baptists as scarcely of the socially elect. The Episcopalians escaped that arraignment, but were feared as in some way leagued with Rome. Even the symbols of the Christian Church were viewed with aversion. Somehow a cross surmounting the tower or spire of an Episcopal Church had a vague menace about it, so thorough had been the work
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of the English Puritans in breeding distrust of all that per- tained to the historic church. All this is not so long ago, and yet the other day when President Taft appointed a Roman Catholic to be Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, the fact (one of the most remarkable in all our history) was passed practically without comment by the people, and was even scarcely noticed in newspapers on the lookout for sensational copy.
After seventy-five years, roughly speaking, we have prac- tically assimilated the Irish. Whether we shall assimilate the foreigners of to-day with the same rapidity and completeness remains to be seen and is at least doubtful. It is, however, clearly unfortunate for the body politic that the new comers are not the devout Catholics that were our Irish immigrants of seventy-five years ago, so completely have we changed in our point of view toward the Roman Church.
In 1850, Henry Peck was Mayor of the City. In the long list of familiar names, I note on the Common Council, Minott Osborn, father of Colonel Norris G. Osborn, Charles B. Whittlesey and Henry Trowbridge, Jr. Gardner Morse was Collector of Taxes, and Henry Dutton, afterwards Governor of Connecticut, grandfather of our George Dutton Watrous, was City Attorney.
The self-contained character and simplicity of the life of the community is indicated by the titles of the City Officials. Charles Peterson and Luman Cowles were "Inspectors of Pot and Pearl Ashes"; Harmanus M. Welch, afterwards Mayor of New Haven, the founder of the First National Bank and father of the late Pierce N. Welch, was one of the "Inspectors of Boards, Shingles and Timber"; Adonijah Parrot was one of the "Inspectors of Shooks, Hoops and Heading"; Cyprian Willcox, Harry Prescott and four others were "Weighers of Hay"; Mariner Beecher and E. Dickerman are listed among the "Pound Keepers." In his Christian name, Mariner Beecher reminds us of the sea-going element in the population of that day. Willard Lyon, Nehemiah Treat and John Munson are
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included in the list of "Impounders." There were also five "Inspectors of Distilled Spirits," three "Inspectors and Meas- urers of Flour and Grain," and four "Inspectors of Oils." Seventeen men are listed as "Inspectors and Measurers of Wood and Charcoal"; but Willard Lyon was the only "Sexton and Hearse Leader." The election of a "Hearse Leader" discloses the fact that the ownership of that lugubrious vehicle was then vested in the city, just as in earlier and simpler days each church society owned a bier on which the dead were borne to the grave. In England the parishes owned biers which were kept in the parish churches. When New Haven "set up" its own hearse, I cannot say. Hartford had done so as early as 1800. Lyman Bissell was "Captain of the Watch and Special Constable," while William Daggett, George Baldwin and four others were "Watchmen and Special Constables." In the list of eighteen "Special Constables" I notice the names of James T. Hemingway, Peter Arbuckle, Reuben Doolittle, Amos Bradley, Jobamah Gunn and Benjamin Webster. For the choicest examples and curiosities of Puritan nomenclature we must go back to the England of the Seventeenth Century. The abundant sprinkling of scriptural names in New Haven in 1850 shows us that Puritanism had not entirely spent its force at the turning point of the last century.
In 1850 the consolidation of the City and Town had not taken place; that did not occur until long afterwards. In that year Alfred Terry was Assistant Town Clerk-popular, but all unconscious of the great role he was to play in the Civil War, and of the immense popularity he was to achieve as New Haven's martial hero. Eli Ives, Henry White, Thomas R. Trowbridge and Levi Gilbert were on the "Committee of the Proprietors of Common and Undivided Lands."
Joseph Trumbull of Hartford was Governor of the State, and Abijah ("Bige") Catlin of Harwinton, Controller of Public Accounts. The Governor drew a salary of $1, 100
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per annum, and the Chief Judge of the Supreme Court $1,300 per annum. Roger S. Baldwin, father of our present Gov- ernor was one of our Senators in Congress; Zachary Taylor was President of the United States. It is interesting to the writer to find that the name of Thomas Ewbank, of New York, as Commissioner of Patents is listed with the President and Cabinet Officers, indicating the importance attached at that time to the office of Commissioner of Patents. Six Temperance Societies with long lists of officers record the great temperance movement which had started some years before-I think about 1838.
In the list of "Public Places" appear the "Alms House," the "Bathing House," the "Cabinet of Minerals, rear of College buildings," the "Cholera Hospital," the "Trumbull Gallery of Paintings, rear of College buildings," and the "Young Men's Institute." The "Cholera Hospital" should by rights have been succeeded by the contagious disease hospital which this generation fought over so long. The listing of the "Trumbull Gallery" and the "Cabinet of Minerals" among "Public Places," makes us curious to know when they lost their public character, which they have regained only within three or four years. Of the "Bathing House" I shall have something to say later.
In 1850 the "Columbian Register" was an evening paper, and the "Journal and Courier" a morning paper as at present, but the "Palladium" was then an evening paper. "The Church Review," the "New Englander" (quarterly), "Silliman's American Journal of Science & Arts" (quarterly), and the "Yale Literary Magazine," impart a serious tone to the list of "Newspapers and Periodicals."
Much information is given with regard to Railways, etc., but I will only note that in 1850 the fare from New Haven to New York was $1.50. The fare to New York has never fallen below $1.50, though in sixty years it has undergone many fluctuations, rising at one time to something over two dollars. During the last few years it has remained at $1.50 until within
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a few months it has been advanced to $1.55 .* A page is devoted to the "New York & Boston Telegraph Association"; "The Magnetic Telegraph Company" (from New York to Washington City) ; the "Washington & New Orleans Tele- graph"; and the "New York, Albany & Buffalo Telegraph Co." "Price Tariffs" are given at length.
Two Homeopathic Physicians, one Botanic Physician, and one Indian Doctor are ranged by themselves, carefully segre- gated from the "Physicians and Surgeons."
In 1850 the citizens of New Haven depended upon wells and reservoirs for water for domestic purposes and for fire protection. No less than 22 city wells and 25 reservoirs are listed and located. This same year, however, marked the beginning of the agitation for waterworks, culminating in 1862 when waterworks were inaugurated. The railroads to Plainville and to New York were completed in 1848; the tele- graph came in 1849. Street paving was begun in 1852; the horse railroad appeared in 1860. The sale of playing cards was prohibited by law until 1848. To offset that relaxation of morals, in the same year it was made unlawful to own a billiard table even for private use. Theatres and theatrical exhibitions were forbidden until 1852, and then permitted only when specially approved and licensed. Most of these curious items I have gleaned from Mr. Henry T. Blake's address, on the occasion, April 25, 1888, of the commemoration of the two hundred and fiftieth anniversary of the settlement of New Haven.
The advertisements in the Directory of 1850 are interesting from many angles-economic, social and artistic. They show us, for one thing, that the girandoles and candelabra and old lamps eagerly sought for in the antique shops to-day, were common enough in all the stores sixty years ago. Skinner & Sperry combine the sale of "fancy goods in the stationery
* During the World War, the fare from New Haven to New York was advanced, reaching its high mark on Aug. 28, 1920 when it was fixed at $2.64, the present fare.
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line" with "sheet music, musical publications and musical instruments of all kinds"; Alfred Walker offers furniture, piano fortes, mattresses, hollow ware, wooden ware, Britannia and cutlery. E. Benjamin, the predecessor of the Ford Com- pany of to-day, calls particular attention to "Spectacles with Parifocal and every other variety of glass, Silver plated Cake Baskets, Tea Setts, Castors, Spoons and Forks; Ivory, Buffalo- horn, ebony, buck and cocoa-wood handle Knives and Forks." Benjamin also invites attention to "Solar Lamps of the most modern style, for churches, parlors and offices, Candelabras, Candle Brackets, Girandoles and Flower Vases and other mantle ornaments, in great variety; together with a large stock of Britannia and German silver goods. Also Com- munion Service constantly on hand." Lamps of all sorts were pushing candles into the background, but they did not reach their greatest popularity until, as I judge, along in the eighties. In 1850 there was no kerosene oil. This came in later. Gas was introduced in 1849 and "gas fixtures" and "gas burners" are advertised but not yet "featured" to any extent. Brown & Kirby offer a great variety of Jewelry, Silverware and a full assortment of "Lamps and Girandoles" including "Glass Lamps for burning Fluid or Camphene, a superior article." William Augur offers "A great variety of curly maple, fancy and Windsor chairs"; while S. and R. Blair extol the merits of "Blair's Premium Patent Sofas" with "Coffins and Shrouds always on hand, and every article required for the interment of the dead, furnished at short notice."
Reuben Doolittle, "Keeper of the City Baths" at 27 and 29 Orange Street, announces that he "Has arranged his establish- ment so as to accommodate Fifty at once, with a Fresh or Salt Bath of any temperature." This establishment I have already referred to as being included with the Alms House, the Cabinet of Minerals, the Trumbull Gallery, the Young Men's Institute, etc., in the list of "Public Places." Of course this was before the days of city water and plumbing and set tubs. Hence these extensive city baths of sixty years ago.
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Presumably the establishment was abandoned after the intro- duction of city water in 1862. The application of the poetry with which Mr. Doolittle sets off the advantages of his estab- lishment is not quite clear, though perhaps not inconsistent with baths "of any temperature." The verses are obviously not his own.
"This is the purest exercise of health, The kind refresher of the summer heats; Nor, when cold winter chills the bright'ning flood, Would I, weak, shiv'ring, linger on the brink."
Lockwood Sanford, "Engraver on Wood," advertises "Drawings taken for Patents"; D. S. Cooper at No. 79 State Street offers "St. Croix Molasses-Sperm Oil-Sperm Can- dles, New Haven Hams," etc., "Goods delivered free"; Charles Bostwick, Jr., offers "Patent folio, Hard Leather & Common Trunks, Valises, Ladies' Hat Cases, Carpet Bags, Fire Buckets, Whips, Bitts, Stirrups and Buffalo Robes." In those days no one was too poor to have a buffalo robe, since great herds of buffalo then roamed the Western prairies. Now a few dispirited, half-breed moth-eaten specimens are cherished in our Zoölogical Gardens, while buffalo skins are sought for by museums. "Fire buckets" suggest the great volunteer organizations of citizens who, equipped with small leather buckets, were largely depended upon to put out fires.
It is gratifying to notice that Mr. Hullfish, "Manufacturer and Wholesale Dealer in Cigars," has constantly on hand the following brands,-"La Norma, Cazadoras, Yara, Principe, Pellon Regalias, Havanna, Primera and Palo Alto."
Whittaker and Frisbie announce that "Having purchased the right to manufacture Carhart's Highly Improved Melo- deon," they "are now prepared to supply orders for the same, either at wholesale or at retail." "Melodeon, that poor creature," was soon succeeded by the parlor organ which long ago moved westward with the square piano. The family melodeon, once inseparably associated, as some one has observed, with "Shall we Gather at the River," was by the
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ruthless onward rush of civilization, swept back into the country, and but few specimens have survived. Professor Gregory ['96] reports that on one of his tours, as school- inspector, he found in a schoolhouse in the Valley of the Pom- peraug, several decrepit melodeons masquerading as desks, not quite voiceless but of greatly impaired articulation. To-day, self-playing pianos are as common as melodeons were once unusual and prized ; grand opera performed in New York may be heard by pressing the ubiquitous electric button.
F. W. Gilbert at 43 Orange Street sold confectionery, kept a dining saloon, was agent for Patent Ice Cream Freezers and a "dealer in German Canary Birds"-a pretty stroke of busi- ness indeed.
It would be interesting to tabulate the names listed in the directory proper to ascertain to what extent the citizens of New Haven in 1850 bore the names of the original settlers of 1638, but such an effort would far transcend my original pur- pose. In the list of names I shall mention but one-that of James Gates Percival, the poet, who in his old age retired to the top floor of the State Hospital, which is given as his address. It is a pity that Percival did not somewhere write down his own reminiscences. As a young man in 1821 he had been induced by "Don David Cortez De Forest" to grace a celebration, in his elegant new mansion (known to this gen- eration as the "Sargent House"), of the anniversary of the Independence of the United Provinces of La Plata. Perci- val read some uncommonly poor poetry on that occasion. However, the poor quality of the poetry did not prevent its being received "with unmingled applause." The piratical host was noted for offering refreshments of an inspiring character, and patriotism warmed with wine does not flinch at poetry however poor. Percival's excessive shyness is traditional ; it did not prevent him from enlivening evening parties with a few selections on the accordeon, which it thus appears was then received in the best houses. The late Mr. Eli Whitney, father of Eli Whitney, 3rd, ['69] of our day, once told me
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of hearing Mr. Percival play. He did not mention the instru- ment, and it never occurred to me that the poet's long blue cloak did not shelter a violin as he flitted, as Professor Beers pictures him, through our elm-shaded streets after dusk. Now I learn that Percival's chosen instrument was none other than the accordeon, outranking perhaps, but not much higher in the scale of musical instruments than what a recent writer has called "that unpretending instrument, the concertina." We of New Haven cling to "Our Own Percival," author of "The Coral Grove," "The Consumptive," "Seneca Lake" and "The Suicide," because local pride must be maintained at full pitch. Still the thought of our poet caressing an accordeon at the social gatherings of the long ago cannot fail to be distressing to the pride of those whose pleasure it is to exalt the elegance of social life in New Haven in the early lustrums of the Republic. Let us hope that in 1850, when we find Percival a resident rather than an inmate of the State Hospital, he had given up music and laid his unpretending instrument aside with his old blue cape. He hardly belonged to the New Haven of 1850, but I cannot forbear this notice of Percival, since he more than any one else connected the city of that time with an earlier, and perhaps more interesting community. Anyone who would make his closer acquaintance should read Professor Beers' delightful essay, entitled, "Our Own Percival," to be found in "The Ways of Yale," and Cogswell's "James Gates Percival and his Friends" (1902).
In 1850 the citizens of New Haven were pluming themselves upon what was then regarded as an extraordinary addition to the architectural embellishments of the city. I refer to the old Chapel Street Railway Station, completed in 1849. This building, three hundred feet long, on the corner of Chapel and Union Streets, was built from designs by Henry Austin in the so-called Italian style, provided at either end with a tower, that at the Chapel Street end of the building rose to a height of one hundred and forty feet above the pavement, and was furnished with a bell and a clock. The clock was given to
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the Railway Company by Mr. James Brewster, one of the chief builders of the Road, its first President and a large stockholder in the enterprise. The main floor of the Station was suspended from a trussed roof by numerous iron rods. This was an innovation in architecture, and viewed by many with considerable alarm. The students, in particular, were greatly interested in the suspended platform, as it were, and visited it under the direction of Tutor Backus, who wisely explained to them the principles underlying this extraordinary engineering feat. Graduates of Yale prior to 1874, when the building was abandoned, have many recollections of the "Old Depot," as it was called, since it was the scene not only of their arrival and departure, but also of many mysterious rites con- nected with the initiation ceremonies of secret societies. The Directory from which I have so freely quoted contains a capital woodcut of the building as viewed from Union Street, and an ample and somewhat florid description of it, furnishing us with a picture of the city as it appeared in 1850 from the tower. "From the belfry of this lofty tower," says the Direc- tory, "lifted 140 feet above the neighboring streets, a most extensive and picturesque view of the city and surrounding country may be had. The spectator looks down on a forest of luxuriant elms, maples, etc., intermingled with which are the stately mansions, beautiful cottages, towering spires, and tasteful gardens of our silvan city." Rising high above the New Haven plain, this "lofty tower" was a striking feature of the landscape, and a landmark for all who "went down to the sea in ships."
Mr. Brewster, President of the Railway Company and donor of the "depot clock," was founder of the Brewster carriage industry which for years made New Haven famous but which is now almost forgotten. His son, the Reverend James Brewster, was for many years Rector of Christ Church. Bishop Brewster of Connecticut and Bishop Brewster of Colorado are his grandsons.
Mr. Brewster lived for a time in the long, low romantic
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house of sweeping roof-lines and many diamond-paned win- dows, which stood until the other day on Water Street, facing the harbor from a large lot between Hamilton and Franklin Streets. Modeled, it is said, on the mansion of a West India planter, it never quite belonged in the New Haven scene. It was built about 1770 by Ralph Isaacs, a rich Jewish merchant of many ships, who soon moved to Branford.
Isaacs sold the house in 1784 to Samuel Broome, who in turn sold it about 1792 to Daniel Green, during whose owner- ship it was the center and scene of a lavish hospitality. Sub- sequently, after Mr. James Brewster, it was occupied for a time by Mayor Chauncey Jerome, and then for some years by a family of Hoadleys, by whose name it was known when the writer first saw it, and was impressed by its unusual and romantic character and admired its winding mahogany stair- case, ornamented with delicate turned spindles.
One of Ralph Isaac's daughters married Judge Jonathan Ingersoll, and their son, Hon. Ralph Isaacs Ingersoll, built in 1830, the Ingersoll mansion facing the Green on the corner of Elm and Temple Streets, long the residence of Governor Charles R. Ingersoll of our day. Governor Ingersoll, in con- versation with the writer, was fond of recalling the old days when New Haven was a fashionable summer resort, especially for Southerners, who crowded the old Pavilion Hotel, also on Water Street, then a gay promenade bordered along the water's edge with overhanging willows.
The hotel was built about 1800 (I do not verify the date) by Kneeland Townsend and David Tomlinson, and in 1850, was drawing to the close of its career as the fashionable summer resort of the North Shore of Long Island Sound. It was in the southern plantation style, with pillared portico and ample windows, and was framed in a setting of willows and other trees, while in front a sandy beach invited to bathing and other water sports. Here came such magnates as Webster, Clay and Calhoun, and Southern families whose boys were in college.
I cannot specify just what buildings, public or private, were
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erected in New Haven in 1850. About that time many build- ings were put up from designs by Henry Austin, the "Father of Architects," and Sidney Mason Stone. Both of these men were self-taught architects, and both had worked as builders before they took up designing. Their work, therefore, had that air of solidity which proceeds from intimate knowledge of actual building operations and which is often absent from the work of better trained architects whose experience does not extend beyond the drawing-board. Both Austin and Stone built many houses of brick covered with stucco, in what passed for the Italian style. Downing, in his book entitled, "Landscape Gardening and Rural Architecture," of which the fourth edition was published in 1849, illustrates one of these New Haven houses. In a footnote, he says: "New Haven abounds with tasteful residences. Hillhouse Avenue, in partic- ular, is remarkable for the neat display of Tuscan and Italian Suburban villas. Moderate in dimension and economical in construction, these exceedingly neat edifices may be consid- ered as models for this kind of dwelling." We are too apt to-day to sneer at the admirable work of Austin and Stone; it was well proportioned and scaled, solid, sincere, finely adapted to its purpose. It was, however, almost invariably bad in the matter of ornament, which was hardly ever organic or constructional; little understood, if at all. The houses of that period were, I venture to say, far superior in almost all that counts in domestic architecture, to the houses built during the next twenty-five years, and indeed, far superior in point of design to many of the houses being erected to-day. The middle of the 19th Century is often described as the period of the lowest pitch in the architectural taste of this country; I should place the period of the greatest architectural depravity at about 1875.
In 1850, the Green presented a wholly different and far more beautiful picture than it does to-day. The elms on the Green-that great elm-gallery once so famous and now a thing of the past-did not, as I think, reach their greatest perfection
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until as late as 1865, but their beauty had been the wonder and admiration of travelers for many years prior to 1850. Not to go too far away from 1850, I may mention the enthu- siasm of Lady Emmeline Stuart Wortley, who came to New Haven in 1849, and of Charles Dickens, who came here in 1842. In writing of New Haven he said in his famous "American Notes" :
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