USA > Connecticut > New Haven County > Hamden > The history of Hamden, Connecticut, 1786-1936 > Part 21
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
One of his best known books, The Masters of Wood Engraving, was printed on a little hand press in his Hamden home. He lived such a completely retired life that he was practically unknown to the community dur- ing his thirty years residence here. It is reasonable to assume that he found conditions in this country so satis- factory as regards the working class, that he no longer had a militant interest in politics, such as he had felt in England. The "Appledore" press lay forgotten in the basement of Tuttle, Morehouse and Taylor in New
3II
Wheels Begin to Turn
Haven until recent years, when it was discovered and presented to the Hamden Historical Society.
THE ATWATER FUND
In 1867, the will of George Atwater greatly bene- fited the insane poor of the town. The sum of nearly $22,000 was left in trust to the trustees of the Hospital for the Insane located at Middletown, the income to be spent for the insane poor of the State, "giving prefer- ence to the indigent insane persons, if such there may be, belonging and having legal residence in my native town of Hamden."
SCHOOLS
In 1854, at a meeting of the Mount Carmel No. 4 School district held in Academy Hall, formerly the home of the Young Ladies Female Seminary, it was vot- ed to rent the lower room for the school and a commit- tee was chosen to negotiate for a building site. For ten years the purchase of Academy Hall was also consid- ered. At one time it was decided to buy it, provided it could be had for $1,500 payable in two years, but this vote was reconsidered. Later, when the building was offered for $1,300, only $1,100 was offered for it. Again, it was voted to make the purchase if right of way to it from the Turnpike could be acquired, but this vote too was rescinded. Finally the committee bought for $200 land belonging to Mrs. Allen Dickerman and the district voted to expend not more than $1,700 to estab- lish a schoolhouse. It was voted that the old oak tree on the corner of Leverett Dickerman's lot be the place
312
The History of Hamden
for posting of school notices. This was at the southeast corner of Whitney Avenue and Ives Street.
The pay of teachers was still small. The East Plains Society, in levying a tax of four cents on the dollar, set their compensation at not more than a dollar a day, with not more than one teacher to a school. A year later the western district in the Mount Carmel Society, after "consulting the minds of the members," employed a man teacher for three or four months, paid Laban Downs $2 a month for "good hard wood, cut and split ready for use, with cindlings," and approved $2.10 a week for the teacher's board, "allowing each one to board their proportionable part of the teacher." (Which does not mean that the teacher's body was dissected and passed around!)
Although a state law of 1856 abolished the school societies and placed the control of schools with the town, Hamden did not turn the School Fund, then amounting to $2,420.61, into the town treasury until 1870. How- ever, Leverett Hitchcock, the town treasurer, handled the money.
When the Mount Carmel committee employed Mr. Fred Brockett as teacher, his salary was only $ I a day, with $3 for board. In comparison with female teachers, he was well paid. Miss Ellen Perkins received $3 a week for teaching in the summer, and Miss Nelly Steele was given the same, "and board herself, or if any one wished to board their proportionable share at $1.50 a week they can do so." Do the comparative figures indi- cate that a female was expected to eat only half as much as a man? or did the food from the summer gardens provide a cheaper table? Of all the economies ever practiced by Hamden school committees, the most
313
Wheels Begin to Turn
typical was a vote in 1857 "that we build a new out- house, using as much of the old as will answer." With true New England thrift, they not only never wasted a penny but did not waste a usable board either.
Although a teacher's qualifications to instruct the young were not often examined on any basis by the school committees whose sole responsibility it was to pass upon them, one committee appears to have had some misgivings, for, having hired the teacher, they entered this comment into the records, "We are likely to be disappointed in the teacher agreed upon." However, whether she was satisfactory or not, she taught the school.
The school districts (the original nine were now thir- teen, two having consolidated and five divided), were numbered: In the Mount Carmel Society,
No. I was the North District. No. 2 was the Northwest.
No. 3 was the Middle District.
No. 4 was at Mt. Carmel.
No. 5 was Centerville.
No. 6 was the Southern (Mix) District.
In the East Plains Society,
No. 7 was Churchillville (Skiff Street).
No. 8 was the Mill District (Whitneyville).
No. 9 was the East (State Street) District.
No. 10 was the Western (Brooks).
No. II was the Middle (Hamden Plains).
No. 12 was the Northwest (Dunbar ) District.
No. 13 was Southwest (Highwood).
The incompleteness of the school records shrouds some actions in mystery. When in 1869 a meeting was
314
The History of Hamden
held "for the purpose of rejecting or accepting a certain legacy offered said district by the will of Sterling Brad- ley," what strings attached to the gift prompted the mention first of "rejecting"? And was the legacy ac- cepted? Who was the Dr. Ives who was permitted to use the schoolhouse for singing school and to eject persons not belonging to it?
The Mount Carmel scholars were obliged to pay fifty cents, later a dollar, for each term of schooling, and payment was shrewdly required at the beginning of the term. For the protection of the buildings, fences, and furniture, it was ruled that the parents of each child who carved his initials or made other defacing marks should pay double the amount of the damage, or the child would be expelled from school.
The General Assembly of Connecticut, after sev- eral years of experimenting to determine the best rate of taxation for school purposes, finally voted in 1869 that the rate must be high enough to provide for thirty weeks of school each year. The so-called free-school law made it mandatory upon all the towns to maintain pub- lic schools by taxation.
A short-lived consolidation of the districts of the town into one, the Hamden Union School District, was effected by a town-meeting vote in January, 1870. A board of education was chosen, consisting of twelve members: Austin Putnam, Leverett Dickerman, Dr. Edwin Swift, Willis E. Miller, Hubert Warren, Hen- ry Munson, Norris Mix, Andrew J. Doolittle, Edwin Potter, Lawrence Warner, Gilbert S. Benham, and John Peck. However, dissatisfaction arose within six months, and in October the January vote was rescinded. An
315
Wheels Begin to Turn
immediate embarrassment was faced, in that the board had authorized the erection of a new schoolhouse in District 14 ("Hamburg" now called Highwood), in- volving an indebtedness of $2,208. The town washed its hands of the transaction, and ordered the board to dispose of the property as best they could at public auction. Later the town softened to the extent of vot- ing to make up the difference, amounting to $765, be- tween the cost price and the sale price.
The first compulsory-attendance law was passed by the General Assembly in 1872, requiring all children between the ages of eight and fourteen to attend school at least three months each year. Acting under the provi- sions of this law, the board of school visitors, in records signed by Oliver Treadwell, noted that "the names of several delinquents, one from the second district, one from the eighth, and twelve from the fourteenth, were reported by the secretary, and he was directed to inform parents that in the future the state law in the case as well as that in reference to truancy would be enforced."
The following members of the board of school visit- ors-Elias Dickerman, Leverett Dickerman, and James J. Webb-came together fifteen minutes in advance of a town meeting and adopted by-laws which they then pre- sented to the open meeting for its approval. Within a few months, the State Board of Education caused the by-laws to be amended, the reason being that in the opening exercises in the schools "the so-called James the First version of the Bible" was the one required to be used, and by both teachers and pupils. As changed, the by-law read, "with the reading by the teachers only, of a short portion of the Holy Scriptures such as she
316
The History of Hamden
may deem appropriate." The change was brought about by the desire of the community to keep religious differ- ences out of the school program.
In 1874, the board of school visitors was composed of Amos Bradley, Oliver Treadwell, Dr. Edwin Swift, Algernon Beach, Ellsworth Cooper, and Andrew Mc- Keon. They decided that the school holidays would be limited to Thanksgiving Day, Christmas, New Year's, February 22, Fast Day, July 4, Saturdays, and Teach- ers' Institute Day. For the loss of any other day, or part of a day, the teacher's pay would be cut.
Textbooks in use at this time included the following: Readers-The Analytical Series
Arithmetic-Greenleaf's New Series, both intellec- tual and written
U. S. History-Anderson's Geography-Mitchell's English Grammar-Hart's Series Composition-Swinton's Language Lessons Spelling-Webster's Analytical
Economy was always foremost. In 1876 the Mount Carmel district voted to fence the school grounds with diamond board fence having three openings and a large gate, but quickly rescinded the action, "since the Town will not bear the expense." On one occasion, inexplica- bly, this district voted "to adjourn this meeting for five years"; and another time, "that the children have the apples that grow on the ground for the next five years."
Once more in the town's school history, when public educational facilities were very poor, private schools were established for those who were willing to pay for better. Mrs. H. G. Dickerman conducted a good school
Old State Street School
Gift of Arnold G. Dana
-
-
--
.
--
Sackett Hotel ( The "New"' Centerville House ), Northeast Centerville Corner
Gift of Arnold G. Dana
317
Wheels Begin to Turn
in 1872 in a square building just south of her home on Whitney Avenue, opposite the old Young Ladies Fe- male Seminary; and there the parents and grandpar- ents of many present-day Mount Carmel people were pupils.
Schoolteaching seems to have been the proverbial profession which Mount Carmel Dickerman women fol- lowed. There were many of them in the public schools, and Miss Emma Dickerman, daughter of Leverett, es- tablished in 1884 an exemplary private school in upper rooms of the family home just south of Ives Street on Whitney Avenue. Girls and boys from six to sixteen were given thorough schooling, and an average of twenty-five pupils at a time were enrolled here over a period of forty years.
Many of the Hamden public schoolteachers received their first training for that work in these two schools.
PUBLIC HEALTH
The cause of widespread sickness in the town was the subject of an investigation undertaken in 1870, by a committee which Dr. Edwin Swift headed. Blame was laid on the variation in the water levels in Lake Whit- ney, with the result that a special town meeting passed the following resolution:
Whereas, the New Haven Water Company has so constructed and maintained their works in this town for the purpose of supplying the City of New Haven with water as to corrupt and poison the air, by means of which nearly our entire population has been made sick with chills and fever, and other diseases have been produced among us or greatly aggravated, while not a few have lost their lives; and real estate in this town
318
The History of Hamden
has been very largely depreciated in value; and where- as unless the cause of this great mischief is removed, the town of Hamden must continue to vitally suffer in all its interests until its population, wealth and business are substantially destroyed; and whereas self-preserva- tion is nature's first law, a committee is hereby appoint- ed to negotiate with the Water Company to remove from the reservoir all bushes, shrubs, leaves, grass, roots, peat, muck and other vegetable matter; to lower the dam at Whitneyville,-they having previously raised and maintained their dam in part for manufac- turing purposes at Whitneyville; to keep such a sup- ply of water during warm weather that no portion of the bed shall be so exposed as to impregnate the air with gases and exhalations prejudicial to health,-not to draw down the water as to cause the surrounding air to be corrupted with miasmatic poisons.
After this public diatribe, one can understand, why the Water Company decided to comply, at least in part, with the request of the agitated townspeople, although emphasizing the fact that the whole trouble was due to Eli Whitney's business and its need for certain water levels.
CHARLES ROBERTS' LIVERY STABLE
The Centerville Trotting Park had proved a great attraction to horse lovers, and Charles Roberts shrewdly ventured to set up a livery business beside it in 1871. His place became a center for horse trading and racing. In time he established a hotel there which occupied most of his attention, while his brother "Jim" ran the stables.
The building on the crossroads corner to the south of Mr. Roberts had become in 1864 the property of
319
Wheels Begin to Turn
Hobart B. Sackett, who also conducted a livery and trading stable. In leasing his place in 1877 to Charles A. Buttrick for $700 a year, Mr. Sackett listed a bar and its furnishings, including "12 black bottles, 3 de- canters, 4 essence bottles, I gallon jar, 8 goblets, 16 large tumblers, 7 beer glasses, 10 thin glasses, 6 Tom and Jerry cups, and I tea kittle." There were five guest rooms.
The original Centerville House was conveyed to William B. Ives as a hotel in 1876. In common usage, Mr. Roberts' place came to be known as the Roberts House.
Whether or not the Centerville hotels and their business of dispensing refreshments was a deciding influence upon the feeling of the people can only be surmised, but a town meeting held in 1872 voted not to recommend any person to sell spirituous or intoxi- cating liquors, ale, or lager beer. The motion was up- held in a later vote, and then was rescinded after a few months. Again in 1874, the vote was against the sale of liquor, 81 to 56. The prohibition lasted for but one year, when the vote was again in favor of license, 158 to 57.
ABRAHAM'S CAVE
The Sleeping Giant was always a haunt of ambitious boys and pleasure-seeking climbers, and Abraham's Cave was an objective frequently sought. It was not easy to find, lying at a point below "Devil's Slide," which leads from the top of the third peak down the southern cliffs to the canyon which separates the third and fourth peaks. It is a fissure in the south side of the
320
The History of Hamden
third peak, not far from the windlass by which water used to be drawn to the top by means of Brockett's cable. The fissure varies from two to four feet in width, and leads into three chambers, the lowest one forty feet below the cave entrance. The first chamber is the larg- est, capable of holding sixteen people at one time. It is utterly dark, impossible to explore without a light. A steep and narrow incline leads to the bottom, which is very cold and damp.
This place became appropriately known as Dead Man's Cave, following a gruesome discovery made in 1872. It was a cold winter's day, and Homer Tuttle and Frederick Brockett, with several other boys, were vainly searching for the cave. Suddenly they spied the fissure, and scrambled eagerly over the boulders to it. They came to an abrupt halt when they saw a shoe pro- truding over the rocks near the entrance, and on discov- ering that it was worn by a dead man, they fled in terror. Because of a heavy snowstorm, it was three days before a party could carry him out of the woods. An empty laudanum vial was found beside the body, which was expensively dressed; $40 in money was in his pockets, a valuable watch and considerable costly jewelry-all marked with the initials "E. B."-were found on his person. An advertisement in the newspapers brought no one to claim the body, and he was buried by the town. Within a week afterward, he was identified as Edward Barnum, the nephew of P. T. Barnum of circus fame.
FRATERNAL AND RELIGIOUS MATTERS
The First Division, Ancient Order of Hibernians, with a membership of more than fifty, was organized in 1873 by men of Irish birth and descent, most of them
321
Wheels Begin to Turn
living in Mount Carmel, the roster bristling with Kellys, O'Connells, McKeons, and Sullivans. The Order flourished for many years, and always added color to local parades.
Through the efforts of Norris Mix, Day Spring Lodge of the Masonic Order was reestablished. Brother Leverett Hitchcock, who had surrendered the charter to the Grand Lodge in 1838, was the only living mem- ber of the earlier group to take part in the ceremonies in 1870. Meetings were held in the upper rooms of the building on the southeast corner of Whitney and Dixwell Avenues in Centerville.
The long rectorship of Rev. Charles W. Everest at Grace Episcopal Church ended in 1874. For over thirty years he had carried the full responsibility for the church and the Rectory School, with additional duties when he officiated for a year at St. John's Church in North Haven. The North Haven Annals says of him:
The next clergyman in order was Rev. Charles W. Everest, who having a semi-military school in Hamden, consented to officiate in the North Haven Church half- time, 1846-7 inclusive. The assistance of this helpful man was of incalculable value to St. John's. His min- istry was a sunny period in the parish history. The Congregational churches stood equally ready to accord him honor as a poet, a scholar and a divine. Through his efforts the women were brought forward to take part in material work, for up to this time no carpeting had been laid in the Church. In 1847 enough was purchased to furnish the aisles.
His broad interest included civic as well as religious and educational matters, one manifestation of which was the planting with his own hands of many of the grand old maple trees on Whitney Avenue in Centerville.
322
The History of Hamden
Beginning in 1868, religious services were held in the public-school building on Morse Street, under the direction of Center Church in New Haven. A chapel called the New Lebanon Mission was erected on Morse Street five years later, and for a number of years Sun- day services included afternoon Sunday School classes as well as morning worship. After the mission had been closed, this was written on the door by an anonymous person, "Lebanon Mission Please Come Back."
SILK MANUFACTURE
Mr. R. S. Clark had been established for only three years in his factory at Clark's Pond, where he continued to make small bells, when he decided in 1875 to try an entirely new business. He knew nothing about the manufacture of silk and had very little money with which to experiment, but he persisted until he and his employees could turn out highly satisfactory silk thread, embroideries, and floss, in competition with imported goods. His son, Herman D. Clark, patented a process of covering cotton thread with silk, which looked like all-silk but was cheaper. In the description of this en- terprise, Blake's History of Hamden disclosed its po- litical bias in this comment: "There is little doubt that if the manufacturers of silk are properly protected by a tariff, they will be able to supply nearly all the demand of the country for all kinds of silk manufactured goods."
TOWN HIGHWAYS
Town meeting still had time to interest itself in small or personal matters. A committee consisting of
323
Wheels Begin to Turn
Henry Munson, Lucius Ives, and Calvin Benham were appointed by town meeting in 1875 to examine a bridge where Lewis Joyce and his wife were injured. They were asked to report to an adjourned town meeting what was the extent of personal injuries and the damage to the horse and wagon, and to advise "how much in Justice the town ought to pay them." Upon the com- mittee's recommendation, $150 was promptly paid by the town to Mr. Joyce.
The labor of one particular citizen upon the town roads was so unsatisfactory that in referring his claim to the selectmen for settlement the town meeting voted that "all town officers are hereby instructed not to em- ploy him in any business for the town, and that the town will not be held responsible for any bills presented for labor hereafter performed by him."
A new road was presented to the town by Samuel P. Crafts, the State Street brick-maker, who explained his gift in this way:
In view of the want of a direct road to the new sta- tion [Quinnipiac] on the Hartford and New Haven Railroad, of an easy grade to haul hay off the salt meadows and to carry wood to the brickyards; and of a road which will not be liable to be blocked with snow in winter,-I hereby agree to give the town a road 50 feet wide through my farm from one street to the other, provided the town will fence and work it.
At this time Captain Crafts was working the clay beds near Quinnipiac Station, and there, deep in the clay, he found two well-preserved leg bones of rein- deer. The same clay bed afforded a boulder of trap rock four feet in diameter, other smaller stones, and patches of pebbles. Captain Crafts believed that their presence
324
The History of Hamden
implied that floating ice deposited them there, and that reindeer followed close on the retreating glacier.
THE TOWN CLERKS
The perennial question of building a town hall met with another postponement, for two more years, in 1876. The town meeting of that year voted to have no more than three selectmen, and to purchase a fireproof safe for the town records, carefully stipulating that said safe should be guaranteed.
Town clerks proverbially hold office for long terms, and Hamden is no exception in this regard, having had only seven. Simeon Bristol, one of the selectmen when the town was organized, also served as town clerk from 1786 to 1801. He was succeeded by Russell Pierpont, who carried on the work of the office until 1842. While in that position, Mr. Pierpont was selectman from 1806 to 1808, and represented Hamden in the General As- sembly in 1810 and 1818. He was the great-grandson of the Reverend James Pierpont who was ordained as the first pastor of Center Church in New Haven in 1685.
When Russell Pierpont retired from office in 1842, Leverett Hitchcock became town clerk. His family had been in Hamden ever since his great-grandfather John Hitchcock acquired land at Mount Carmel in 1708. John's son Isaac, and Isaac's son Ichabod, like Leverett himself, were born in Hamden. During his term of thirty-four years, he served one year in the General Assembly (1839), and for twenty-five years was also the Hamden postmaster in Centerville, to which posi- tion he was appointed in 1851.
325
Wheels Begin to Turn
In 1876, Ellsworth Cooper became town clerk. He was born in Centerville, son of Ezra Cooper, who main- tained a blacksmith shop there for fifteen years, having previously worked in Mr. Whitney's Armory. Ells- worth attended Hamden schools, including the Misses Dickerman's select school, and North Haven Academy. He taught school in North Branford, North Haven, and Brookfield, and in 1868 at Mount Carmel. Oddly enough, after devoting so much time to teaching, he became a clerk in Eneas Warner's store in the first floor of the building used for town meetings, and worked there for six years. Beginning in 1876, he was town clerk until 1904, and town treasurer at the same time, until 1900.
THE STOCK YARDS
When Edward Riley, butcher, and his wife moved from New Haven out into Hamden, Dixwell Avenue was a winding cartpath, with grass growing between the wheel tracks. They lived in a small house on Dixwell Avenue opposite Woodin Street. In 1876 he built a new house nearer to the slaughter-house which he main- tained near the Northampton Railroad tracks just south of Putnam Avenue, known to railroad men as "the stock yards." Mr. Riley lived here for fifty years, and sold a large proportion of the meat which the big hotels, restaurants, and provision stores in New Haven used.
WATER COMPANIES
Wintergreen Lake in the western part of the town was purchased in 1877 by the New Haven Water Com- pany from John Osborn, who had built a dam there in
326
The History of Hamden
1863. The reservoir, covering sixty acres, was a half- mile long, and water was supplied from it to houses in the Prospect Street section in New Haven. Winter- green Falls is still a romantic spot, the water falling one hundred feet into a wooded ravine. For one hun- dred years this property belonged to the Henry Mun- son family.
Inspired perhaps by this expansion of the New Ha- ven Water Company, a charter was obtained in 1878 for the Mount Carmel Water Company, which started with a capital of $5,000. It was organized by James Ives, the manufacturer, who was president; Allen Os- born secretary, treasurer, and surveyor; and Lyman Bassett and Samuel Hayes directors. The company acquired title to land and water-heads in the northwest- ern part of the town, believing that such a supply as they could furnish would be available to sections of too high elevation to be supplied by the New Haven system. In addition, they wished to provide water for Centerville, Hamden Plains, and Mount Carmel.
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.