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 8
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 | Part 52 | Part 53 | Part 54 | Part 55 | Part 56 | Part 57 | Part 58 | Part 59 | Part 60
"The opening of the Art School and the Museum on Sun- days and the proposition to open the Historical Society build- ing on Sundays are significant of the forces now working to extend to everyone who has the will to enjoy them, privileges heretofore restricted to a small class. In the report of the Boston Museum of Fine Arts for the year 1907, its president, Mr. Lane, says in conclusion :
"'A mere collection of beautiful objects is of little value unless seen, appreciated and understood by many. It is, and should be, the effort of all interested in the welfare of the Museum to make it in the future, even more than in the past, an active and living force in the community, appeal- ing to all classes of citizens and promoting the knowledge and life of the fine arts.'
70
NEW HAVEN :
"In the same report, Mr. Fairbanks, director of the Museum, says in part :
" 'It is desirable that every means be adopted to make the collections enjoyable to the public. It is perhaps desirable that the closest possible connection with the schools be established to the end that the faculty of æsthetic appreciation may be developed in the children where it has, to say the least, remained dormant in their parents. . The Museum exists for the people. Its use by the connoisseur, by artists and by the student of the history of art, is in no way inconsistent with its use by the public at large. In the installation of the collections in the new building the governing aim will be so to place our possessions that they may be understood and enjoyed by all visitors.'
"I hope the day is not far distant when the library of the New Haven County Historical Society, with its rich collection of books on local and family history, may be opened to the public. There would seem to be no reason for duplicating these books in the public or University libraries.
[I count it a privilege to have been the first to propose to the University authorities the opening of the Art School and Peabody Museum on Sundays to the general public. My first effort in this direction was sometime prior to 1908, when this address was made. ]
Sunday Recitals on the Great Newberry Organ Proposed48
[I venture to express the hope that the University author- ities will arrange a series of organ recitals in Woolsey Hall on Sunday afternoons next winter. Woolsey Hall is one of
48 The text in brackets, forming page 19 of the address as written, was not delivered, since a friend was fearful that it would lead to criticism of the University on the score of exemption from taxation. The page was, therefore, reserved for future use. On May II, 1908, a copy of it was sent to the secretary of Yale University, with a letter. Some corre- spondence followed. The next fall the University announced two public concerts on the Newberry organ. These were given by Professor Jepson to audiences filling Woolsey Hall. It was hoped that such appreciation would lead the University to give to the public a series of free organ recitals on Sunday afternoons as proposed in the address.
7I
LOOKING FORWARD.
the finest auditoriums in the country, and I believe that I am right in saying that the Newberry organ is one of the finest organs in the world; certainly there are few, if any, finer on this side of the Atlantic. For several years a notable series of Monday afternoon organ recitals has been given by Professor Jepson and other distinguished artists. But from these Mon- day afternoon recitals men and women who work in shops and offices are excluded by the very nature and hours of their occu- pation; yet they are just as eager for the privilege and just as deserving of it as any class in the community, and perhaps more so. It would be an inspiration to Professor Jepson or any other organist, to play to such a great congregation as would gather on Sunday afternoon, were Woolsey Hall freely open to the public. The late Professor William Dwight Whitney once said that all good music is sacred music. I think there could be no objection to-day on the ground of Sunday observance. The Newberry organ is an electric organ and these recitals could not be given without some expense to the University ; but the expense would be small in proportion to the benefit bestowed and I think the University would cheerfully bear it. I would even suggest that the Monday afternoon recitals be given up and replaced by Sunday after- noon concerts for the larger and less privileged public. ]
"The coordination of the different educational instruments of a city is a slow task, involving as it does, the cooperation of a large number of people and the adjustment of many nice questions; but we are certainly on the high road to a 'City Beautiful' in a better sense than has yet been given to that term.
"When all the citizens of a community, whatever its size, feel that they can enjoy, not by sufferance, but as a matter of right, such privileges as the place affords, then the citizens will begin to participate, not merely in the privileges, but in the obligations of the community, and many of our perplexing problems of municipal government will have disappeared. A city,' says Aristotle, 'is a place where men lead a common life to a noble end.' ".
V.
THE RISE AND FALL OF THE "CITY OF ELMS": A CAMPAIGN DOCUMENT URGING SPRAYING OF THE ELMS AND THE EMPLOYMENT OF AN EXPERT TO BEGIN REPLANT- ING AND THE SYSTEMATIC CARE OF ALL CITY TREES.49
"In the record of town officers elected Dec. 9, 1776, there appears, for the first time, a name that shines through all the ensuing half century of our local history, and has an honorable place in the history of our country,-the name of James Hillhouse. To him more than to any other man since the laying out of the town plat in 1638, New Haven owes the beauty that makes it famous." Dr. Bacon's Civic Oration on the Hun- dredth Anniversary of American Independence, July 4, 1876.
To the Citizens of New Haven:
The failure of the recent appeal made by Professor Henry S. Graves,50 director of the Yale Forest School, to the citizens of New Haven to form a shade tree association, leads me to prepare for presentation to the public material that I have been engaged in collecting for many months. Professor
49 This "campaign document," prepared as a contribution to a movement to save the elms and other trees of New Haven from complete destruc- tion and to reclaim for the city its old name "City of Elms," was first printed in the New Haven Sunday Register and New Haven Sunday Union of March 21, March 28 and April 4, 1909.
The writer wishes to acknowledge the kind assistance of Mr. Henry T. Blake, chairman of the New Haven Park Commission, Dr. Wilton E. Britton, horticulturist of the State of Connecticut, and Professor Henry S. Graves, director of the Yale Forest School, who read the proofs and offered valuable suggestions, and to Professor Bernadotte Perrin of Yale University, Mr. George Douglass Miller of Albany, N. Y., and Mr. Thomas Hooker, Jr., who loaned rare and early photographs of the trees for reproduction.
30 Appointed January, 1910, by President Taft to be Forester of the United States, succeeding Mr. Gifford Pinchot.
73
THE RISE AND FALL OF THE CITY OF ELMS.
Graves's appeal was primarily directed to citizens having trees on or adjoining their own property. My investigations have chiefly dealt with trees on the old Green and city streets, and hence on land exclusively controlled by the city. Photo- graphs showing the elms on the old Green as they appeared at the height of their glory, when compared with those taken under my direction last summer, will illustrate and enforce the points I shall endeavor to make.
My objects are :
First, to induce all citizens owning trees at once to notify Professor Graves of their desire to join his proposed associa- tion; and
Second, to induce all citizens who have the welfare of the city at heart to demand the employment by the city of a tree expert, who shall henceforth have the entire care of the existing trees, and whose duty it shall be at once to begin systematic replanting, this demand to be expressed through the aldermen or other city officials, through the press, or in any other way.
The First Task of a Tree Expert would be to Attend to the Spraying of the Elms
My interest in the New Haven elms (if I may be allowed a personal word), began long before I came here to live. I well remember the pleasure I had as a small boy in examining a photograph we had at my home in Bristol of the Temple Street arch. When I was fourteen or fifteen years old, I came to New Haven on purpose to see the arch-my first visit to the city. I thought at that time that the trees owed much of their beauty and grandeur to the jealous care taken of them by an appreciative public. From 1878 to 1883 I lived in Washington, D. C., and reading from time to time in the Washington papers references to the New Haven elms, I was led to believe that, as they were the glory and pride of the city, they were the constant and intelligent care of its citizens. For these reasons I recall as plainly as though it
74
NEW HAVEN :
were yesterday my astonishment when I came here to live in 1883, to find literally thousands of trees suffering from the grossest neglect, unnecessary to describe in detail, as neglect of the same kind but intensified by the years may be seen on every hand to-day. Trees are too tolerant of abuse to go all at once. With them decay and ruin are matters of slow but certain progress.
Condition of the Trees To-day not Chargeable to Beetles Alone
I dare say that the blame for the condition of the trees throughout the city to-day is, for the most part, put upon the beetles instead of upon the citizens. The truth is, the beetles are only one factor in the problem. As we do not feel indi- vidual responsibility for the trees, we do not really look at them. We regard the trees as works of nature and able to take care of themselves, rather than as plants needing constant attention and intelligent care, all the more because they are struggling for life in city streets instead of growing in the open or in the forest.
When I came to New Haven in 1883 I was struck by the fact that the trees all over the city were mutilated by horse- bites, which not only disfigure and deform trees, but lead to their certain decay and death. Even the colonists of 150 years ago seem to have understood this, as we are told by Jared Eliot, who saw the Green in 1760, that the trees planted the year before around the Green had been protected against the "ravages of beasts." In a recent address by J. J. Levison, the city forester of Brooklyn, he said :
"The bruising of the bark by a horse, wagon or by a careless knife is probably the most important injury to guard against in the care of our trees. In a typical section of Brooklyn I found 51 per cent. of the trees ruined from such injury. In order to clearly understand the nature of this injury it will be necessary to say a word about a certain part of the structure of a tree. The live portion of the tree is the cambium layer, which is a thin tissue right under the bark. It must completely
75
THE RISE AND FALL OF THE CITY OF ELMS.
envelop the stem, root and branches of the tree. The outer bark is a protective covering to this living layer and the entire inner wood tissue is composed of dead cells and merely serves as a skeleton or support. The inner woody portion of the tree will remain sound indefinitely if protected by this cam- bium layer. It is now evident that bruising the tree, which is equivalent to removing the cambium layer, will not only cut off a portion of the sap supply, but will also expose the inner wood to the action of decay. The horse-bite is just that sort of injury and gives equally bad results. The wound may at first look insignificant, but, if neglected, will soon com- mence decay and carry disease and insects into the tree. The tree then becomes hollow and dangerous and its life is doomed. It requires a large expenditure to care for a dis- eased condition that might have been easily and cheaply pre- vented by a cheap guard or by a little dressing of the wound before it had developed too far."
I single out this matter of horse-bites because horse-bites are the most conspicuous of all injuries as well as the most fruitful single source of ruin. Forty years ago many more trees were furnished with trunk-guards than are so protected to-day.
I wish every person who is sufficiently interested to read this article, or any part of it, would at once go out upon the nearest street with the sole object of examining the trees. He will not have to walk far to find a great number of trees cruelly horse- bitten, and in a great majority of instances he will find these wounds filled with decayed and honeycombed wood. He will find many trees with dead branches and stumps of branches, and many with large and small cavities- the result of bungling and ignorant pruning. He will find many trees girdled by borers, many covered with excrescences indicative of disease, many with broken or freshly abraded bark, many with the bark peeled and burnt off by electric wires, and many with their main lateral brace roots cut away and hacked into in laying curbstones and changing
76
NEW HAVEN :
street grades. He will find but few trunk guards and little or no provision made in the pavements for access of water to the roots of the trees. He will find many trees dead or dying as the result of the attacks of the elm leaf beetle. He will find that the small trees set out here and there to replace trees removed are receiving no more attention than the old trees. I make this rehearsal of conditions to show that the situation confronting us to-day cannot be charged alone to the elm leaf beetle, which did not appear in New Haven until 1891.
Ignorance no Excuse To-day
Ignorance cannot excuse us to-day. Everyone of this gener- ation knows, or should know, that mutilations of the bark and roots, and careless and ignorant pruning, pave the way for the introduction into trees of the seeds of decay just as surely as blood poisoning follows a careless and ignorant surgical operation. In brief, the condition of the trees, elms and other species, throughout the city of New Haven is as bad as it could well be, and will constantly grow worse, just as any wound, if neglected, will grow worse. We must lose the trees one by one if we do not begin systematically to care for them. All of the elms should be sprayed to arrest the ravages of the elm leaf beetle; all trees of whatever species standing near the curbs should be furnished with trunk guards; every diseased tree should be cut down or treated so as to save it; decayed trees should have all decay removed and their cavities filled with cement; all the trees should be intelligently pruned; provision should be made for the access of water to the roots of the trees, and where feasible the soil should be fertilized. These are some of the things that should be done to save the trees and when the trees have been cared for and replanting has begun, the ordinances for the protec- tion of the trees throughout the city should be strictly enforced.
We have so many trees in New Haven that such a work will be one of magnitude and will be expensive, not only to begin, but to maintain. However, there is no other alternative
77
THE RISE AND FALL OF THE CITY OF ELMS.
if New Haven desires to continue to be known as the "City of Elms," and to keep up with its neighbors. Then there is another fruitful source of loss. Trees seem to be unfortu- nate in getting in the way of public service corporations and private promoters, and in falling subject to the whims of house-owners and builders who want to "improve the view," and who get authority to fell trees which a city forester would hesitate a long time before giving an order to cut.
Who, with any pride in our trees, has not stood by and watched the felling of some tree condemned as dead or unsafe, but showing an abundance of living tissue under the ax?
The View of an Architect
In talking a few days ago in New York with a well-known architect, he said: "New Haven has no buildings of archi- tectural interest to speak of. The two churches in the style of Wren on the old Green are the only specimens of really noble architecture that I recall; but," he continued, after a pause, "New Haven is redeemed by her wonderful elms." What would he think of the "wonderful elms" of New Haven should he visit the city to-day? Would he not distrust his memory as he surveyed the ruins of the trees on the old Green? The wreckage is so complete that the Green affords little to assist the imagination that would reclothe it in the likeness of its great days. I repeat this remark to show that even to-day New Haven enjoys a great reputation throughout the country on account of her elms-a reputation she does not now deserve and cannot keep unless she bestirs herself and begins the work of redemption.
The Enthusiasm of Lady Wortley
I have made no effort to look up what foreign travelers have said about the New Haven elms, though that would be an interesting line of research. I happen, however, to have at hand a book of travels51ª by Lady Wortley, an English lady
Bla "Travels in the United States," by the Lady Emmeline Stuart Wort- ley. New York, 1851. She was entertained in New Haven by Mrs. W. and her daughter, and Mrs. D.
78
NEW HAVEN :
of rank, who spent several days here in 1849-just sixty years ago. She says :
"New Haven is lovely ; but I must explain to what it owes its principal charm: It is to the exceeding profusion of its stately elms, which render it not only one of the most charming, but one of the most 'unique' cities I ever beheld. From the trees it is called the 'City of Elms,' and it may be imagined how delightful a place of residence they must make it in the heat of an American summer."
In "Dinsmore's Guide," published ten years later, New Haven is called "the handsomest city in the United States," undoubtedly on account of the trees so much admired by Lady Wortley.
The "Encyclopedia Britannica" (ninth edition, 1884), in its article on New Haven says :
"The abundance and beauty of the elms planted about this square" (the old Green) "and along many of the streets has caused the place to be familiarly known as the 'Elm City.'"
Baedeker's "United States" (Leipsic, 1899) says of New Haven :
"It is known as the 'City of Elms' from the fine trees which shade its streets."
Such quotations might, as I have no doubt, be almost end- lessly multiplied.51b Those given answer my present purpose of showing what a world-wide reputation the elms of New Haven have bestowed upon the city.
The Great Cryptomeria of Japan
To hear people at a distance talk about the New Haven elms one would think the people of New Haven guarded the trees as zealously and cared for them as vigilantly and as intel- ligently as the people of Japan guard and care for the great cryptomeria, which for hundreds of years have received almost religious attention, and which have so well repaid this care that to-day they form the chief arboreal glory of Japan.
51b Other accounts of the elms on the Green will be found in notes printed at the end of this article on p. 123.
79
THE RISE AND FALL OF THE CITY OF ELMS.
Planting of the Elms Begun in 1686
That the New Haven elms have long enjoyed an almost world-wide reputation has been sufficiently indicated. This leads us to inquire when and by whom they were planted, and who, if anyone in particular, is entitled to the credit of the work.
In Mr. Henry T. Blake's "Chronicles of New Haven Green," he says :
"The first elm tree planting of which we have any informa- tion was in 1686 in front of the dwelling-house of Rev. James Pierpont, which stood about where Temple Street enters Elm. Two trees were set out there by William Cooper as a gift to Mr. Pierpont, and one of them was still standing, almost in the middle of Elm Street, in front of the Bristol residence,52 until cut down in 1840."
Elm Street Named from the Cooper Elms, Set Out in 1686
In his paper entitled "New Haven in 1784," Professor Dexter points out that Elm Street took its name from the already patriarchal trees planted in 1686 in front of the Rev. James Pierpont's dwelling and remaining almost to our day.
The Rev. Dr. Leonard Bacon in his "Historical Dis- courses" (New Haven, 1839), tells the story of these two trees-the most notable elms of all the company. Speaking
52 Built 1800 by "Squire" Simeon Bristol of Hamden for his son, Wil- liam Bristol, afterwards Judge of the Superior and Supreme Courts, of the U. S. District Court, a Member of Congress. The house was erected on the site of the Rev. James Pierpont house, built 1686. The Bristol house was designed and built by David Hoadley and demolished 1908 to provide a site for the Ives Memorial Library, now building (1910). When the Pierpont house was demolished in 1800, some of the roof-timbers were saved and utilized in framing the roof of the Blake house, then in course of erection and now occupied by the "Graduates Club." These timbers appear to be as sound to-day as when they were hewn 225 years ago. [The porch of the Bristol house, one of Hoadley's best designs, was re-erected in the Metropolitan Museum 1919, the gift of Mr. Cass Gilbert.]
1
80
NEW HAVEN :
of the house built by the voluntary contributions of the people for the Rev. James Pierpont, Dr. Bacon says :
"As the people were bringing in their free-will offerings of one kind and another to complete and furnish the building, one man (a poor parishioner, William Cooper, by name), desiring to do something for the object, and having nothing else to offer, brought on his shoulder from the farms two elm saplings, and planted them before the door of the minister's house. Under their shade, some forty years afterwards, Jonathan Edwards, then soon to take rank in the intellectual world with Locke and Leibnitz, spoke words of mingled love and piety in the ear of Sarah Pierpont. Under their shade, when some sixty summers had passed over them, Whitfield stood on a platform, and lifted up that voice, the tones of which lingered so long in thousands of hearts. One of them is still standing, the tallest and most venerable of all the trees in this city of elms, and ever the first to be tinged with green at the return of spring."
It would be a graceful thing if the authorities of Center Church should plant two elms and make them their special care, calling them the "Cooper elms" in commemoration of the first planting of elms in New Haven of which we have any record.
Testimony of the Maps of 1724, 1748, 1775 and 1817
When the "market place" was surveyed in 1638 by John Brockett, surveyor, it was wooded; with what species of trees we can only conjecture.
In his "Chronicles," Mr. Blake says :
"When first staked out in 1638, the market place, so far as it could be separated from the general tract of woodland com- posing the town plot, presented itself to the eye as an uneven wooded plain, sloping from west to east, the declivity being considerably steeper on the south side than on the north. At the foot of the slope was a swamp, occupying the greater part of what is now the lower Green, and overgrown with alder bushes" (p. 14).
81
THE RISE AND FALL OF THE CITY OF ELMS.
It does not appear when the Green was cleared of the timber found growing upon it when the town was settled, but Mr. Blake thinks that the first meeting-house erected in 1639 was built from timber growing on the square.
The Green, as shown in Brown's map of New Haven, dated 1724, does not show a single tree, not even the twin elms planted in 1686 by William Cooper; but these had not then had time to reach commanding size.
Wadsworth's map of New Haven in 1748 shows in front of the house of "Ja. Pierpont Gent," the two elms planted by William Cooper in 1686; these are marked "2 trees planted in 1686." The statement is made by Henry Howe in a series of letters published in the Journal and Courier, 1883-84 under the heading "New Haven's Green and Elms," that "both of these trees were standing in 1825; the last was taken down in 1840. Its circumference was 18 feet, exceeding by two feet any elm now in the city. A section of it was preserved for many years by the Misses Foster." These ladies, descend- ants of Mr. Pierpont, lived in the house53 now the residence of the Rev. Anson Phelps Stokes, Jr. Another section of the tree cut down in 1840 has been preserved to this day by Mr. Henry T. Blake.
President Ezra Stiles's map of New Haven in 1775 shows the single row of trees planted entirely around the Green in 1759, but not the "Cooper elms" planted in 1686, which were then standing.
Doolittle's map of New Haven in 1817 shows not only the trees planted around the Green in 1759, but also the trees of the "great planting" on the Green of 1784-96. In addition, this map shows the Cooper elms in front of the Pierpont house and the systematic planting of trees in the south end of the old Campus, called then (as it should be still), the "College Yard." The word "campus" did not come into use at Yale until about 1870.
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.