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 58
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"The Donna Julia" (née Julia Wooster, of Huntington, Con- necticut ), wife of "Don" De Forest, painted about 1823 by S. F. B. Morse, in the costume in which she appeared at the "court" of Presi- dent Madison. The portrait was painted in Morse's barn-studio on Hillhouse Avenue. Thus resplendently dressed, she was driven to the studio in a yellow coach lined with blue satin. No wonder that all New Haven was agog over the splendor and lavish expen- ditures of these "interlopers," with their foreign ways, which we may well believe were not all approved, though furtively enjoyed.
One of the crowning moments of Donna Julia's life was offering the old Marquis de Lafayette a glass of wine when he called on her on the occasion of his visit to New Haven in 1824.
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JAMES GATES PERCIVAL (1795-1856, Yale College 1815) (See Section XXIII, pages 262-283)
One of the most gifted, as well as one of the most eccentric, characters that ever walked the elm-shaded streets of New Haven was "our own Percival," of whom Professor Beers said in "The Ways of Yale" (New York, 1903) :
"New Haveners would not like to lose his picturesque figure from their traditions. Of this figure, tall and stooping, and wrapped in an 'old blue cloak,' the eye of fancy may still catch glimpses, passing swiftly and furtively between the college build- ings in the dusk."
When the elegant De Forest mansion was ready for occupancy, "Don David" and "The Donna Julia" gave a housewarming-one of the most splendid and lavish entertainments in New Haven annals, and to give the function unwonted éclat, they induced James Gates Percival to write a poem for the occasion. Posterity has done well to forget the poem, as well as most of Percival's effusions, though the writer admits a fondness for "The Coral Grave," and "Seneca Lake," and even Professor Beers delighted in Percival's Byronic "Revenge." The writer begged Professor Lounsbury in vain to give a place to just one piece of Percival's in his "Yale Book of American Verse," 1912.
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THE NATHAN SMITH HOUSE
(See Section XXIII, pages 262-283)
Main entrance to the Nathan Smith House, designed and built (1816-18) by David Hoadley-the most admired, I am told, of his domestic designs. Demolished 1910 to provide a site for the new New Haven Court House. The elaborate wrought-iron vases and railings were secured for the New Haven Colony Historical Society by the author and installed in front of the new building of the society by the architect J. Frederick Kelly. General Lafayette reviewed the troops from these steps on the occasion of his visit to New Haven, August, 1824.
When this house was torn down, the doorway was retrieved by the author's lamented friend, the gifted Richard Henry Dana, Jr., and installed as the front doorway of his house in Washington, Connecticut, where the author was pleased to see it thus honorably put into use by an architect who appreciated its merit.
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THE SMITH AND DE FOREST HOUSES
(See Section XVII, pages 239-243)
The superb wrought-iron urns and railings flanking the front entrance of the Nathan Smith House (1816-18). Beyond is seen the façade of the De Forest House (1819-21), the former designed and built by David Hoadley and the latter built by Hoadley on the plan of the famous Hoppin house in Providence, Rhode Island, designed by John Holden Green.
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THE RUSSELL MANSION, MIDDLETOWN, CONN. (See Section XVII, pages 239-243)
Façade of the Russell Mansion (1828), High Street, Middle- town, Connecticut, designed and built by David Hoadley for Mr. Samuel Russell, then in China, founder of the great banking house of Russell & Company, Canton. The six superb columns were intended for the Eagle Bank, of New Haven, designed by Ithiel Town, but the bank failed while the building was under construction in 1825. Hoadley secured the columns, which were drawn over the hills to Middletown by six teams of oxen and there used by him in constructing the Russell Mansion, which its owner is said never to have seen until he sailed up the river on his return from China.
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Side view of the Russell Mansion, Middletown, now owned by Wesleyan University and still one of the chief architectural orna- ments of Middlesex County.
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FO CE MEMORY OF DAVID HOADLEY
DESIGNER & BVILDER OF TOUS HOVSE ANNODOM' 181 4815 SELB TAVOITTE ROSE TO BE ONE OFTHES FOREMOST ARCHITECTS OFTHIS TIME LIE WAS FOR MANY YEAR ARESIDENT OF NEWTONVEN WHICHTHE GREATIN ENRICHIEN VILCHIS GENIVS ANALIEND). ANE VCON PE SERVICES OF THIS CHERCHE BORN IN WATERBURY THE DUD PIERE 18.79
"He had a sound fudomen( .. well balanced mind and . generorer and honest heare"
MEMORIAL TABLET TO HOADLEY
Slate tablet designed by the late Henry Charles Dean, A.E.F., of Boston. The lettering was cut by hand by William J. Meister of New Haven. Erected in 1915 in the vestibule of the North Church by the author.
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GLORY TO. COLIN-THE JACHEST
Contemporary crystal chandelier in the North Church as photo- graphed prior to its partial restoration. Two similar but smaller chandeliers hung in the church when first built. From all I can find out, one was "plucked" to fill gaps in the largest, here shown. The other was given or sold (presumably when the church was remodeled in 1850) to a church in Guilford, by which it was passed on to the Protestant Episcopal Church in Durham, where it may be seen to this day.
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"ALLERTON AVENUE" SUGGESTED AS THE NAME FOR THE ORANGE STREET APPROACH TO THE RAILWAY STATION
(See Section XXV, pages 295-297)
There is no portrait of Allerton and his inventory on file is too meager to enable a student to reconstruct his house and does not confirm its alleged grandeur and four porches. Be that as it may, it has long seemed to me that as the only member of the Mayflower band ever to make his home in New Haven, Allerton is fairly entitled to some memorial here. The letter of 1920, which forms Section XXV of this book, was an attempt to get the Mayor to use his influence to have the new station approach named "Allerton Avenue." The effort failed. The writer hopes, how- ever, that one of these days New Haven may have a memorial tablet to Allerton with an inscription something like the following :
TO THE MEMORY OF ISAAC ALLERTON-the only member of the Mayflower band to settle in New Haven. He came here in 1646 and he died here in 1659 and was buried in the Old Green near the present flagstaff. He was the fifth to sign the compact in the cabin of the Mayflower, his name standing between those of Elder Brewster and Captain Myles Standish. One of the most active men in the commercial undertakings of his time, he sent his vessels from this port to Massachusetts Bay, Virginia, Delaware Bay, and Barbadoes. The "Father of New England commerce." His was a restless spirit.
The author takes pleasure in adding to this page the record that his proposal for a memorial to Allerton having been brought to the attention of members of the Mayflower Society, a tablet to the memory of Allerton was erected with suitable ceremony in our historic Grove Street Cemetery. The author regrets that he is unable to give the inscription on this tablet.
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ERECTING THE MEMORIAL ARCH, NEW HAVEN WEEK, 1912
The crowning feature of the "New Haven Week" celebration of 1912 was the Court of Honor arranged in front of the churches on the Old Green, and the leading feature of this Court of Honor was a memorial arch providing tablets on which were inscribed the names of leading citizens from the foundation of the town in 1638 up to 1912. The writer was commandeered to furnish the names-to populate the pantheon, which was soon overcrowded, as Section XXVIII shows. The above cut shows workmen engaged upon one of the pylons of the memorial arch.
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HENRY AUSTIN (1804-1891) : ARCHITECT (See Section XV, pages 219-232)
"Henry Austin, Architect. Born at Mount Carmel, December 4, 1804, died at New Haven, December 17, 1891. A good designer and a sound builder. For nearly fifty years he was the leading architect of this region. A pupil of Ithiel Town."
The author was surprised to find that there was no inscription on the handsome brown stone shaft in the Grove Street Cemetery, seemingly erected by Austin himself some time before his death. The author conferred with the late Leoni W. Robinson, the archi- tect, who joined him in the expense of having the above inscription cut on the monument. Austin had a number of Town's books on Architecture with fine plates.
THE MOSES YALE BEACH MANSION, WALLING- FORD; HENRY AUSTIN, ARCHITECT Built about 1850. Now the St. George's Inn.
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THE OLD NEW HAVEN DEPOT
The Old New Haven Depot : Henry Austin, architect. Built 1848-49. It faced the east on Union Street and extended south from Chapel. Three hundred feet long, the tower at its north end was one hundred forty feet [high?] and that at its south end eighty-two feet. Cost $40,000. "The style of Architecture is Italian[?]." "Obliging servants are always in attendance [ ?]." For an account of this building, see the New Haven City Directory for the year 1848. The use of it as a railroad station was dis- continued on the erection, in 1874, of the Meadow Street Depot. The Old Depot was burned on July 4, 1894.
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THE OLD COLLEGE LIBRARY
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THE OLD COLLEGE LIBRARY
(See Section XV, page 219)
The Old College Library, designed and built (1842-47) by Henry Austin, probably with the assistance of Henry Flockton, a trained English draftsman employed in his office at the time. Perhaps modeled on King's College, Cambridge. It is considered to be almost unique in this country as a building erected at the time of the pre-Raphaelite movement and influenced by that style. In 1918 the writer proposed the restoration of the building for use as an open-shelf library by the undergraduate body. (See pp. 230- 233. ) In 1923, the one hundred and fiftieth anniversary of Hale's graduation from Yale, he proposed the restoration of the Library as a memorial to Hale. (Pp. 355-357.)
Restored 1931 for the Yale Young Men's Christian Association. The nave of the Old Library has been converted into a chapel, called the Dwight Memorial Chapel, and furnished with a hand- some stained glass window by the D'Ascenzo Studios, Philadelphia, and a small but fine organ much used for recitals. This chapel interior is regarded by many as one of the most satisfactory architectural designs owned by the University.
It is believed that the profusion of wooden pinnacles shown in the above cut were never erected.
Since the foregoing was written, I have learned that Austin was the architect of the Morse House (undoubtedly Austin's master- piece ) in Portland, Maine, and now claimed to be "the best stand- ing example of Victorian Art and Architecture in Northeastern America." This house was begun in 1859 and was four years in building. Mr. Morse lived in it up to the time of his death in 1893. After long neglect, the house was bought by W. H. Holmes, Esq., who now occupies it. The pictures of it and its furnishings seem to warrant the claim made for it.
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MAIN READING ROOM, OLD COLLEGE LIBRARY
The nave forming the main reading room of the Old College Library as it appeared in the old days to generations of Yale undergraduates. (From Kingsley's "Yale College," published 1879, New York.)
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UNIQUE REVERSED ARCHES UNDER OLD COLLEGE LIBRARY
One of the reversed arches which form footings for the piers of the nave of the Old College Library, designed and built 1842-47 by Henry Austin. Other instances of this scientific method of providing footings for piers in masonry construction have not been located in this country.
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THE COLLEGE YARD LOOKING NORTH (See Section XXIII, pages 262-283)
The College Yard, looking north. South Middle (1752) (Connecticut Hall) to the left. Battell Chapel (1876, Russell Sturgis, Jr., architect), in the distant center, dates the picture.
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THE COLLEGE YARD, LOOKING SOUTH
(See Section XXIII, pages 262-283)
The College Yard, looking south. On the left: Farnam Hall (1869, Russell Sturgis, Jr., architect). On the right : North Col- lege, the Old Chapel (1824), Lyceum. Mr. Cass Gilbert expressed admiration for the skilful manner in which the portico of the Old Chapel (architect unknown) was attached to the base of the tower. A cherished undergraduate tradition was that one of the columns of this portico contained a bottle of rum. When the portico was demolished, a bottle (so I have been told) was found hidden in one of the columns, but, alas for the story, it was empty !
731
ANOTHER VIEW OF THE OLD YALE CAMPUS
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ANOTHER VIEW OF THE OLD YALE CAMPUS (See Section XXIII, pages 262-283)
Another view of the College fence and the Old Brick Row. Farnam Hall (1869, Russell Sturgis, Jr., architect) is seen at the extreme right.
CONSULE PLANCO By Henry Augustin Beers, Yale College 1869
In Plancus' days, when life was slow, We dwelt within the Old Brick Row Before Durfee or Welch was built, Or gilded youths in Vanderbilt Looked down upon the mob below. Then Freshmen did not use to go 'Most every evening to the show ; Quite inexpensive was our gilt In Plancus' days. We had no football then, you know : All bloodless lay the untrodden snow, No gore was shed, no ink was spilt, No poet got upon his stilt To write these frenchified rondeaux, In Plancus' days.
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THE OLD YALE FENCE AND THE OLD BRICK ROW (See Section XXIII, pages 262-283)
"Bright College Years" in the langsyne. A group of undergraduates on the famous fence on the corner of Chapel and College Streets.
The fence was removed when Osborn Hall was built in 1888. In the background stands the historic Old Brick Row.
735
THE OLD UNION STREET MARKET To the right the Farmington Canal and a Canal Boat I place this picture between 1850 and 1860.
THE PAVILION HOTEL (See Section XXIII, pages 262-283)
Soon after the new steamboat Fulton began her regular trips to New York in 1815, the palatial Pavilion Hotel was erected on the harbor front, near the steamboat landing. Though built for the accommodation of travelers arriving on the new steamboat line, it soon became popular as a shore resort, and Governor Ingersoll once told the author that many Southern families spent a portion of their summers here.
In 1832, James Brewster bought the Pavilion, with a large tract of land adjoining it, and built his carriage factory at the foot of Wooster Street, when that section became known as Brewsterville. But though the Pavilion continued as a hotel until 1859, it was afterwards used as a tenement and as a resort for far less distin- guished patrons. Later it became a part of Sargent & Company's plant and was torn down in 1906.
When the author came to live in New Haven in 1883, the tradi- tion of the Pavilion Hotel had not entirely faded, and the hotel
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was referred to as an institution of grandeur and style, not to say of social tone, from having been patronized by prominent Southern families. It is a pity that its Register was not kept and deposited in the Historical Society.
Mr. Arnold Guyot Dana has kindly given me the following notice of this famous hotel taken from the Connecticut Journal of April 30, 1816:
"On Wednesday last was laid the Corner Stone of the NEW HOTEL, that is to be built by Messrs. Tomlinson and Townsend, in connection with the Proprietors of the Steam Boat FULTON, for the convenience of passengers traveling in the boat. It will be when completed, the most superb edifice of the kind, both as it respects appearance, convenience and situation, that there is in the United States.
"It is 90 by 60 feet-4 stories high, and calculated for the greatest of all luxuries in a public house, SINGLE ROOMS for LODGING. The situation as respects the view of the country back, the water prospect in front, and in fact of the whole sur- rounding scenery, is superior to that of any other this country affords."
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THE WATER FRONT IN THE 1830's
(Courtesy of Roger White, Esq.) (See Section XXIII)
Scene on the water front in the Eighteen-Thirties. The Pavilion Hotel is seen at the left, and Brewster's carriage factory (built 1832) at the extreme right.
THE BREWSTER CARRIAGE FACTORY (Courtesy of Roger White, Esq.) (See Section XXIII)
James Brewster's carriage factory at the foot of Wooster Street. Here was begun the great New Haven carriage industry, for which the city was famous throughout the United States and England.
The foregoing lithographs I have failed to identify as to artist or date but I suppose them to have been made soon after 1832.
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NEW HAVEN IN 1850 (See Section XXIII, pages 262-283)
SAVIN ROCK IN EARLY DAYS
Savin Rock. From Lambert's "History of the Colony of New Haven." The "Rock" appears to have been a resort for young couples even in those early days, but the writer cannot account for the cannon and tent.
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COLONEL JOHN TRUMBULL (Courtesy of Yale University) (Section XVIII, pages 244-249)
From the portrait by Samuel Lovett Waldo (1783-1861, A.N.A.), a native of Windham, Connecticut, in the Yale Gallery of the Fine Arts.
Colonel John Trumbull (1756-1843, Harvard College 1773), soldier, painter, diplomatist, architect. Son of Governor Jonathan Trumbull (1710-1785). His portraits of many of the first men of our Epic Age will ensure him a permanent place in American art and history. His portraits of Washington, in particular, are said to look more as that great man looked than any of the portraits by the other numerous artists who painted him. As an architect, he designed the beautiful church in Lebanon with its wonderful spire. In his later years Colonel Trumbull spent much time here in New Haven, in the household of Professor Silliman, the Elder, whose wife was his niece. He is said to have been as irascible and difficult as he was handsome and gifted.
"To his Country he gave his Sword and his Pencil." (Epitaph.)
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"QUALITY ROW" Elm Street, Facing the Old Green
(Section XVIII, pages 244-249)
The houses (left to right) are: the Henry Trowbridge house. built 1851-52, Sidney Mason Stone (1803-1882), architect ; the Nathan Smith house, built 1816(?), David Hoadley, architect ; and the David Curtis De Forest house, built 1819-21, David Hoadley. architect. These three houses suggest that "air of refinement and repose" for which New Haven was so celebrated a full century ago. In 1823, De Forest founded three scholarships in Yale College for excellence in English composition and declamation. To his largesse is due one of the most coveted of all Yale prizes, the De Forest Gold Medal. Credited with being piratical, Don De Forest is one of the most picturesque figures in our New Haven "portrait gallery." The three houses shown have been demolished. The De Forest house is shown as it was before it was remodeled and enlarged for Mayor Sargent about 1880.
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THE NEW HAVEN CITY HALL
(See Section XIX, pages 250-251)
The New Haven City Hall, built 1861, the design credited to Henry Austin, but actually done by David Russell Brown (1831- 1910), who told the writer that he got the idea for the building from a picture in an illustrated English magazine devoted to architecture.
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The New Haven City Hall shown with the Old County Court House (to the left) built in 1871 from designs by Mr. Brown. These Victorian Gothic designs, executed in brownstone, were greatly admired when the writer came to New Haven to live in 1883.
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PAUL WAYLAND BARTLETT : SCULPTOR
(See Section VII, pages 144-151)
Paul Wayland Bartlett (1865-1925), Commandeur du Legion d'Honneur. A native of New Haven, sculptor of the equestrian statue of Lafayette in Paris; of "Michael Angelo" in the Con- gressional Library at Washington; of the pediment of the east wing of the Capitol in Washington, and of many other works of conspicuous merit. His greatly admired "Bear Trainer" is in the Metropolitan Museum. A small bronze torso by him was given to the Yale School of the Fine Arts by the author, who endeavored to have him commissioned to do statues of Governor Theophilus Eaton and Roger Sherman to stand in front of the New Haven County Court House. But the commission was given to Mr. Massey Rhind, who did not accept the author's idea, and so New Haven lost the opportunity of having works by a native son who ranks high among American sculptors, and also lost the oppor- tunity to have memorials to two of its most memorable figures.
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EQUESTRIAN STATUE OF LAFAYETTE (See Section VII, pages 144-151)
Equestrian statue of Lafayette given by the children of the United States to France. Paul Wayland Bartlett, the sculptor, was a native of New Haven. The statue, which stands in the Court of Honor in the Louvre in Paris, ranks as one of the finest equestrian statues in the world. A replica has recently been erected in Hartford, near the Capitol building, for which Bartlett did the figures of Governor Winthrop and Captain John Mason, and also a relief (of the Dutch sailing up the river) in one of the tympana in the main entrance to the building.
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The author, once much interested in book-plates, formed a small collection and proposed to illustrate several in this book, but now will do no more than to show four plates by half-tone cuts made before his illness. He had a part in designing the four plates shown.
1822
IK MARVEL.
1908
PEVERIES OF A BACHELOR 1850
DREAM LIFE 1651
MY FARM OF EDGEWOOD - 1863
THE DONALD . G . MITCHELL MEMORIAL LIBRARY
By Frederick Spencerly, commissioned by the writer to execute this plate, which shows Mr. Mitchell, cane in hand, standing at the doorway of his house of "Edgewood."
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LIBRARY OF THE SOCIETY OF COLONIAL WARS IN THE STATE OF CONNECTICUT
By Edwin Davis French ( 1851-1906), master of American book- plate designers and engravers, sometimes called the "American Sherborn." Commissioned in 1891 by the writer, then secretary of the Society of Colonial Wars in Connecticut, to execute this plate.
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.
THINK CLEAR
ERVITUWELL
FEEL DEER
BEAR
THE EDWARD TOMPKINS MSLAVGHLINY MEMORIAL PRIZE IN ENGLISH COMPOSITION FOUNDED A.D.
MDCCCXCIY
LL
AWARDED TO
PRESIDENT
Book-plate intended to be inserted in the books bought with the prize money by the winners of the prize which was first suggested by the author in memory of his friend, Professor of "Rhetoric and Belles Lettres." The author commissioned Mr. French to do this plate which is dated 1896. (See pp. 477-478.)
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MEHORSE
676-6BROS GEORGE DUDLEY SEYMOUR
CH 1994.
Etched by William F. Hopson (1849-1935) in 1894; No. 5 in his series of plates. This plate, entirely designed by the writer, shows the house built in 1760-61 by his great-grandfather, Captain Charles Churchill (1723-1802), in Newington, near Hartford.
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DONALD GRANT MITCHELL (1822-1908, Yale College 1841) (See Section XXXII, pages 323-326)
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"Rosebank," once occupied by Donald G. Mitchell. He replaced this house by "Edgewood," the present family home.
"Rosebank" is said to have been built by William Collins Cod- rington, a wealthy Jamaican planter, whose daughter, Mary, mar- ried Eleazer Kingsbury Foster, Esquire (1813-1877), a promi- nent lawyer of his time, and father of the late John Pierrepont Codrington Foster, the well-known physician of New Haven.
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THE PORTRAIT OF CHIEF-JUSTICE TAFT
THE FOLLOWING TEXT APPLIES TO THE PICTURE OF MR. TAFT USED AS THE FRONTISPIECE OF THIS BOOK
New Haven, Connecticut, January 18, 1939.
This portrait of Chief-Justice Taft was painted from life in 1929 in The Corcoran Art Gallery, Washington, D. C., by Ernest L. Ipsen, N.A., commissioned thereto by the subscriber, who pre- sented the portrait to the Government to be hung with the portraits of the Justices of the Supreme Court. In conversation with me one day, Mr. Taft deplored that he had been painted for the White House by Zorn ; for his brother, Charles P. Taft, by Sarolla, rather than by an American painter. He would have preferred, he said, to have been painted by Sargent. I got his permission to write to Mr. Sargent, who replied that he had given up portrait painting and declined the commission with reluctance. Mr. Sar- gent was then at work, I believe, on his murals for the Boston Public Library. Accordingly, I referred the matter of the selec- tion of a portrait painter to my friend, Herbert A. Adams, presi- dent of the National Academy of Design. After surveying the field, Mr. Adams recommended Mr. Ipsen for the commission. Mr. Ipsen, accordingly, went to Washington and, as a spectator, attended the sessions of the Supreme Court for several days in order to study Mr. Taft who, of course, did not know who he was. Then Mr. Taft gave Mr. Ipsen what sittings were required. Before the portrait was completed, I went to Washington with my junior partner, Mr. Malcolm P. Nichols. We joined Mr. Taft and Mr. Ipsen in the improvised studio in The Corcoran Art Gallery, and I made some suggestions about the portrait-all in the direction of simplification. Both Mr. and Mrs. Taft expressed themselves as entirely satisfied with the likeness. In due time I presented the portrait, and Chief-Justice Hughes wrote me that he would like to arrange a simple presentation ceremony if I would come on to Washington; but as I had no idea of any publicity in connection with the gift, I declined, and have kept the matter a secret until within a few weeks. Having reached my eightieth year, I thought I might as well "let the cat out of the
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