USA > Connecticut > New Haven County > Hamden > The history of Hamden, Connecticut, 1786-1959 > Part 19
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
Water was pumped into the lake in January, 1861, and into the mains a year later. The New Haven Water Company's plans for the lake had met with determined opposition, and in assigning the charter to Mr. Whitney
280
The History of Hamden
the city of New Haven had made it distinctly under- stood that he was accepting all the loss or possible profit, of the undertaking. Fortunately, in spite of the financial crisis which came soon after the election of President Lincoln, the Armory was so busy making rifles, work- ing day and night, that its earnings were sufficient to finance the construction of the waterworks. Associated with Mr. Whitney in the corporation were Henry Hotchkiss, Ezra Read, O. F. Winchester, James Brews- ter, E. C. Scranton, and others.
LOUIS KOSSUTH
Mr. Whitney's Armory was one of the principal places visited by the famous Hungarian patriot, Louis Kossuth, when he came to New Haven in 1852. The following description of the visit is given in Henry Peck's History of the State House, New Haven, Con- necticut :
Thousands of people hastened to the Green to see and hear the famous Hungarian patriot, Kossuth, whose mission to this country in behalf of fallen nobility aroused the sympathies of the entire population of the United States. . .. Hundreds of young men wore on their heads black soft felt hats in the bands of which were stuck a small black feather as worn by the city's guest, and for years this sort of hat went by the name of Kossuth, and was worn by nearly all young men. After finishing his address General Kossuth was re- ceived by a committee of the Yale faculty. . He was here introduced to some gentlemen of Whitney- ville, and left the college grounds to receive a present of rifles from the workmen at the Whitney Arms Factory. On arriving at Whitneyville, a salute was fired from the top of East Rock. On a bridge con- necting two buildings of the Whitney manufactory
28I
Wheels Begin to Turn
were ranged in order twenty handsome rifles, the gift of the workmen to Kossuth. Over them was covered a white cloth bordered with evergreens and on it was painted: "Material Aid for Hungary." Eli Whitney showed Kossuth through the factory. In due time the party arrived on the bridge in front of the row of guns. At this point the workmen were each introduced to Kossuth by name, Mr. Whitney being master of cere- monies. Each man shook hands with the Hungarian. Mr. Whitney made a short speech, presenting the guns, and Kossuth in returning thanks remarked that if he had one more opportunity to contend on the field of battle for his beloved country, those arms should be given to chosen men who should be ever near him, and he would not fail to remind them from whom the gift came, and he believed they would not dishonor their cause or the patriotic impulses of the generous men who made the arms and gave them to his country.
A brief story of Louis Kossuth's background is worth recounting, for he was a colorful figure of world im- portance. Hungary had had a long tradition of govern- ment with a representative parliament, but in the six- teenth century it was taken over by the Austrian Haps- burgs, whose domination nevertheless did not entirely suppress their traditional government.
In the widespread European democratic ferment and revolutions against autocratic governments in 1848, the Austrian government began to crumble, and the Hun- garian patriots saw an excellent chance to regain all of their ancient independence. The leadership of the movement was taken by Louis Kossuth, a well-educated lawyer and editor of a journal preaching Hungarian nationalism.
Because the Austrian government was occupied on several other endangered fronts, Hungary achieved a large measure of self-government, although it con-
282
The History of Hamden
tinued to recognize the Hapsburg sovereign as its king. However, having put down other rebellions, Austria then turned its armies against Hungary. The undaunt- ed Hungarians were holding their own under the leadership of Kossuth, until two events occurred.
Kossuth issued a decree declaring the house of Haps- burg deposed, which gave the Russian Tsar Nicholas a chance to interfere in defense of the principle of mon- archy. This brought about the downfall of the Republic of Hungary, and Kossuth, who had been governor from April to August, fled with other revolutionary leaders to Turkey, where he was made a prisoner.
During his stay in Asia he assiduously studied modern languages and acquired fluency in English, French, Ger- man, and Italian. Through the influence of England and the United States he was liberated in September, 1851, and embarked on the United States war steamer Mississippi which had been sent to convey him from Asia. In England he addressed large audiences in behalf of Hungarian independence, and he came to the United States on a similar tour of principal cities, but he was never given an opportunity thereafter to lead a revolu- tion in Hungary.
A large proportion of the people of the United States manifested in every possible way their sympathy with his misfortunes, although the government did not com- mit itself to his cause. He continued for several dec- ades to speak and write in behalf of independence, from his home in England.
THE WATER COMPANY AND THE TURNPIKES
Mr. Whitney carried on traditions established by his father, not only in the conduct of the arms business
283
Wheels Begin to Turn
and the enlargement of its buildings but also in replac- ing the dying Lombardy poplars which his father had planted in a double row along Whitney Avenue in New Haven, with beautiful elms, many of which are a part of the present arboreal Gothic arch which spans the avenue named for him.
Whitney Avenue north of the Armory was still called the Cheshire Turnpike, and changes in its course were made necessary by the flooding of the lake area. Largely through the tact and wisdom of Charles Brockett of Mount Carmel, who was first selectman in the difficult period of 1859-61, the town adjusted its difficulties with the Water Company without litigation. These diffi- culties were the basis for the call for a town meeting in 1860, which read:
Whereas, the New Haven Water Company proposes obstructing, changing and discontinuing certain high- ways and bridges, . . . a town meeting is called for the purpose of passing such vote as is necessary for the protection of the town's interests.
The meeting then adopted the following resolution: Resolved, that our representative in the legislature be instructed to use his influence by vote and otherwise toward the passage of a certain petition in reference to the New Haven Water Company's proposed changes, .. and further he be instructed to use all honor- able means toward securing the location of the main road leading from Centerville to New Haven which is proposed to be changed by the Water Company, on the west side of the pond, crossing at or near the Red Bank, where a large majority of the citizens desire to have it located.
Whatever influence was used in this regard by repre- sentative James M. Ford-(whether, as instructed, "by vote and otherwise," or by "honorable means"!) was
284
The History of Hamden
successful; inasmuch as the bridge which carried the road over the lake was built a short distance above Red Bank, where at the junction of Waite and Ford Streets the old turnpike used to come out, after crossing through the present bed of the lake from a point east of the Whitneyville Church. Depressions of the old road can still be seen there.
In 1869 the dam was raised again, increasing the capacity of the lake by 59,000,000 gallons. Another accomplishment of Selectman Brockett was the estab- lishment with North Haven of the town boundary line which runs in the center of the turnpike, south from the Centerville bridge to a line through the former James J. Webb farm.
THE CIVIL WAR
The Civil War found Connecticut full of patriotism, and a regiment of volunteers materialized in four days. When a draft was put into effect in 1862, Hamden was called upon for 36 men. In that year, a town meeting held in George W. Chatfield's hall, formerly Tem- perance Hall, for the purpose of enlisting men "to assist in putting down the present rebellion," voted "that a bounty of $100 be paid out of the treasury to each volunteer residing in this town who enlists under the call before the Government makes a draft, paid to him when he is sworn in." The Catalogue of Connecti- cut Volunteers published by the State credits the town with 264 men in the service, but some of this number were not residents-they had been attracted here by the bounty offer.
A man who was drafted had the privilege of hiring a substitute, but by 1863 there were many Hamden men
285
Wheels Begin to Turn
who could not afford this, and whose absence would throw the support of their dependents upon the town. Accordingly, in another town meeting it was voted that whereas "many inhabitants have been drafted, whose labors are required for the support of their families and others dependent upon them, and whereby the town is exposed to charge on that account, that some cannot pay the United States for procuring a substitute, $300 from the town treasury may be allowed each of them, to relieve them from duty and provide a sub- stitute."
There were three drafts in all. In 1864 the town appropriated the sum of $5,000 "to defray expenses of supplying and filling its deficiency of the town quota under the last call of the President of the United States for 500,000 men."
Hamden men were engaged in almost all of the prin- cipal military operations of the war. They were in the Army of the Potomac from Bull Run to Appomattox; in North Carolina under Burnside, and among the first to tread the soil of South Carolina. They were in the Army of the Gulf, at Chattanooga, and they marched through Georgia to the sea. Twenty-seven of them gave their lives for their country:
Ed H. Tyler, Co. K, Ist Cavalry, Conn. Volunteers Charles Johnson, Co. C, Ist Artillery
John Sullivan, Co. E, Ninth C. V. James Griffin, Co. A, Tenth C. V. George Masse, Co. B, Eleventh C. V. James Messin, Co. D, Eleventh C. V. Joseph Wood, Co. E, Eleventh C. V. Adolph Pierre, Co. K, Eleventh C. V.
Robert Handley, Co. K, Eleventh C. V. Pedro Bozart, Co. E, Fifthteenth C. V.
x Joel Dickerman, Co. I, Twentieth C. V.
286
The History of Hamden
Bernard Mulvey, Co. I, Twentieth C. V. x Curtis Tuttle, Co. I, Twentieth C. V. Louis Danner, Co. K, Twentieth C. V. x Lorenzo Goodyear, Co. I, 24th C. V. Lyman Goodyear, Co. I, 24th C. V. Gardner Goodyear, Co. I, 24th C. V.
x Edgar D. Ives, Co. I, 24th C. V.
x Andrew Peck, Co. I, 24th C. V. Julius Curtis, Co. I, 24th C. V.
x Hobart Wooding, Co. I, 24th C. V.
x Marshall Gaylord, Co. I, 24th C. V. Harvey Merriman, Co. I, 24th C. V. Horace Pierpont, Co. I, 24th C. V. John Williams, Co. B, 29th C. V. Henry Williams, Co. H, 29th C. V.
Henry Campner, Co. F, 29th C. V.
Almost half of the number were from I Company of the Twenty-fourth Regiment, which was officered en- tirely by Hamden men:
Capt. Alonzo Babbett
x Ist Lieut. Jesse B. Gilbert 2nd Lieut. Lucerne Goodyear
Sergts. x Wallace Warner, Charles Allen, Lyman Goodyear, Albert Candee, Hobart Wooding. Corporals, George Harlow, Lyman Warner, Albert Ives, Edwin Whiting, x Noah Alling, Edgar Ives, Andrew Peck, John Murphy.
Musicians, x Ansel Doolittle, Jerome Payne.
In these lists will be noted almost a dozen of the fam- ily names which have been prominent throughout Ham- den history-names which will not die, for their achieve- ments, like those of the great men of all ages, have the significance which survives the test of time. Their line of living men has run through our civic life for
287
Wheels Begin to Turn
generations, becoming an integral part of it, and wheth- er in their living deeds or in the memory of them after death, the town has become a part of what they were.
The bearer of one such well-known name, Benjamin Pardee, went to war as captain of Company A, and in a short time was promoted to lieutenant colonel. Ben- jamin Jepson, later professor of music in the New Ha- ven public schools, was Captain Pardee's first lieuten- ant. In the spring of 1862, a provost marshal's office was established in each county of the state, and Colonel Pardee held the office for New Haven County.
Captain Samuel Craft, a prominent brickmaker on State Street, enlisted in the Navy early in the war, and for a while commanded a vessel in the blockade; but he was eager to see more action than was offered in this assignment, and succeeded in obtaining command of Admiral Porter's dispatch boat, which bore the melo- dious name Aida. Captain Craft's duties carried him into responsible and dangerous work in the North At- lantic squadron, chiefly at the taking of Fort Fisher, at Wilmington, North Carolina, for which he was honored by citation.
The war gave women new opportunities for service to the men in the field. Up to that time all war nursing and cooking had been done by men. But Clara Barton broke down the barriers of precedent and of violent official opposition, enlisting the services of women to nurse on Southern battlefields. Her action inspired countless other women to volunteer their services. Two of these women were from Hamden-Sylvia Doolittle and her adopted daughter, Sarah Chadwick, whose home was in Mount Carmel. Indignant objection to their going was voiced by many of the townspeople, yet
288
The History of Hamden
these courageous women served as nurses till the end of the war. Mrs. Chadwick was married four times, and her respective husbands were named Warner, Stev- ens, who died in service in the Civil War, Meacham, and Chadwick.
Ezra Dickerman of Mount Carmel, brother of the sisters who conducted the Seminary, enlisted in the Tenth Connecticut Regiment, and when he had been in service a year, his brother Edward organized a com- pany in the Twentieth Regiment made up largely of their friends and neighbors, who chose Ezra as their captain. This company called itself the "Whit- ney Rifles," and Eli Whitney, 2d, acknowledged the honor done him in the choice of his name, by pre- senting the group with one hundred revolvers valued at $1,200. In his address of presentation he said:
Gentlemen of the Whitney Rifles: It gives me much pleasure to meet you on this occasion and to thank you for the compliment you have paid me in naming your company the Whitney Rifles. I shall watch your pro- gress with interest wherever your field of operations may be; and having a captain of such known and tried courage, possessing your confidence and respect, I doubt not you will give a good account of yourselves when you meet the enemy, and that your company will be noted for its valor, daring and success throughout the war. You have a great destiny to achieve, a great and good cause to fight for. You are struggling to sustain the best government on which the sun ever shone, the best ever granted by God to man. May God have each one of you in His holy keeping, whether you are des- tined to survive or perish in this great and irrepressi- ble conflict. May you ever bear in mind the righteous- ness and justice of your cause, and that you are fight- ing for the nobility of labor and for civil liberty.
289
Wheels Begin to Turn
To these words of Mr. Whitney, Captain Dickerman responded as follows:
In behalf of the Whitney Rifles, I sincerely thank you for the beautiful gift which you have presented us, a gift which we prize for its intrinsic value, but far more for the good wishes which attend it. In seeking a name for this Company, we have found none under which we can more enthusiastically contend for the holy cause in which we are enlisted, than that which you bear-a name not only associated with the interests of, and hon- ored by the town of Hamden and the County of New Haven, but the State and the whole Nation, and let me pledge our honor that no one of us will prove unwor- thy of the name which we bear. Sir, I do not lead forth these men to the conflict trusting in my own strength but in the Lord of Hosts, believing that He will watch over and protect us in the hour of danger, and enable us to perform our duty with credit to our- selves and our country, and add another star to the wreath of laurels that have already been bestowed upon the name of Whitney.
In earlier years, Captain Dickerman had interested himself in the establishment of the Sunday Schools in West Woods and at Quinnipiac, and naturally he would recall the words. of the familiar psalm, "Who is this King of Glory? The Lord, strong and mighty, the Lord mighty in battle. The Lord of Hosts, He is the King of Glory."
Ezra was with the Twentieth Regiment guarding communications for the Army of Cumberland when it was hard-pressed at Chattanooga. He was at Lookout Mountain and Missionary Ridge, and marched with Sherman to Atlanta. When Cassville was captured by the Twentieth Connecticut and the Nineteenth Michi- gan Regiments alone, the colonel praised Ezra for
290
The History of Hamden
"promptness and good conduct" in this action. At Peach Tree Creek, where Sherman lost 4,000 men and the Confederates 8,000, the Twentieth was in the front line and repelled many furious attacks, standing four hours in an open field during obstinate battle, and Cap- tain Ezra was among the wounded there.
If those who gave their lives could have chosen an epitaph best suited to their thoughts, it might well have been, Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori, "It is sweet and good to die for one's country." Julia Ward Howe in the Battle Hymn of the Republic spoke the words that lay in every Northern soldier's heart:
He has sounded forth the trumpet that shall never call retreat,
He is sifting out the hearts of men before His judg- ment seat;
Oh be swift, my soul, to answer Him! Be jubilant, my feet!
Our God is marching on!
MANUFACTURING AT MOUNT CARMEL JAMES IVES
The railroad to Northampton was an enormous en- couragement to manufacturing in Hamden, and two flag stations were maintained in Mount Carmel and one in Centerville (near the present junction of old Dixwell Avenue and Evergreen Avenue). Passengers and freight were accommodated, the freight including raw material for the factories and the finished goods ready for market.
James Ives, who had early begun his manufacturing career in the founding of the Brass Works, was con- cerned in a leading capacity in a number of subsequent industries in Mount Carmel. In 1855 the Brass Works
291
Wheels Begin to Turn
became the Ives, Pardee Manufacturing Company, with Mr. Ives the president and Benjamin Pardee secretary and treasurer. They took over a small defunct mallea- ble iron works, located near them on the river. They had a capital of $50,000, and with their first year's profit of 20 per cent, they erected a brass foundry 100 feet long, containing 12 furnaces. This company had a short-lived prosperity, due, as Blake says in his his- tory, to the discovery that "while rich bankers and mer- chants had money, they also had friends who wanted office [in the company ]. The result was that the friends got the offices, while their supporters and all other stock- holders lost their money, and after five years of folly, the bankrupt estate paid 3c. on a dollar."
James Ives bought up the company, and with Joseph Granniss established a new firm, Ives and Granniss. They made an agreement never to give a business note, and after nine years of careful and conscientious work were justifiably proud of a sound and reputable busi- ness. An outstanding characteristic of their company, attributed also to all the Mount Carmel industries of that period, was that "no drummers have ever been employed to travel and sell the goods produced, and very rarely an advertisement has been published in the papers." When the company was reorganized as the Ives and Woodruff Company, the books showed that in the nine years of Ives and Granniss, less than $200 had been expended for travel, and not a cent for adver- tising; yet the names of customers of thirty years' con- tinuous patronage were on the records.
Mr. Ives and Joseph Granniss were associated to- gether in the formation of the "Mount Carmel Savings Bank & Building Association" in 1850. Their bank business matters were carried on in the Seminary build-
292
The History of Hamden
ing on the hill, which became James Ives's residence after the early death of the Dickerman sisters. Mr. Granniss' daughter inherited the house on the corner of Woodruff Street and Whitney Avenue from her father, who had acquired it through a foreclosure of the bank. In clearing up a mortgage in 1877 Mr. Gran- niss described himself as "the last treasurer" of the bank.
Mr. Ives was able to interest himself in more than one business at a time. In 1853 he was associated in the Mount Carmel Screw Works with Mr. E. S. Pierce, who was the inventor of a superior wooden screw. He rented his Ivesville general store in 1857 to Almon Warner, with the stipulation that no drinks were to be sold except "small beer, soda, ginger pop or lemonade." Also, no lights were to be used "to endanger the insur- ance on the store"-probably indicating a distrust of kerosene. Mr. Warner could also use the hay scales and half the icehouse, provided he did half the work in filling it.
After the death of Henry Ives, the Mount Carmel Axle Works became Frederick Ives and Company, en- joying success during the Civil War. Then Willis E. Miller, whose father had been a mechanic in Charles Brockett's carriage spring factory, became a partner and the firm name became Ives and Miller.
The strong sense of individual responsibility for the worth and dependability of the finished product after it is in use, which is characteristic of a proud and inde- pendent artisan, is shown by James Ives in his descrip- tion of the Axle Works. In referring to his nephew Frederick, he said:
While reticent in business transactions and disposed to retirement, his superior judgement and watchful care
IVES & GRANNISS MANUFACTURERS OF
ESTABLISHED
1835.
Mount Carmel
OFFICE
Connecticut.
Harness Hardware
Carriage AND SADDLERY GOODS & MALLEABLE IRON CASTINGS.
Ives and Grannis Letterhead
The Mount Carmel Post Office, Ivesville, James Ives's Store on Opposite Corner
Gift of Arnold G. Dana
-
-
-
293
Wheels Begin to Turn
were ever manifest in the essentials of a business where life and limb are dependent upon the quality of mate- rial and workmanship. And just here, reader, consider the responsibility of the axle maker, whose every day and hour's work is to stand the wrack and wrench of careless driving with the loads of precious life over rough country roads or worse city streets with stone pavements, iron rails, and switches so laid that for axle breakers, human skill would fail to excel them.
WILLIS E. MILLER
Willis E. Miller was a typical self-made man. All the schooling he ever had was received in the one-room first schoolhouse in Mount Carmel. Upon leaving there at the age of ten, he was employed by a butcher in Pierpont's market in New Haven. As a very young man he was employed in the Axle Works, where he invented a patented axle bearing his name. In time he became the head of the Axle Company, and also a sub- stantial and important citizen of the town. He lived in the Nathaniel Sherman house south of the Mount Car- mel Church for eight years, and for a few years he lived in New Haven, commuting back and forth to the Axle Works by train, but the beautiful old Miller homestead on Whitney Avenue was the place most closely asso- ciated with him.
Many Hamden people came to him for advice about the settlement of estates, a field in which he had a great deal of experience. He made it a rule, from a high sense of duty, to accept the position of administrator or guardian whenever he was asked to do so. When his nephew was about to decline, on the grounds of inex- perience, an appointment as conservator, Mr. Miller
294
The History of Hamden
persuaded him to accept the trust, saying, "You take the job, and I will keep the record."
Willis Miller was serious, dignified, thorough, pub- lic-spirited, and noted for his exact punctuality which he also expected of others. When he died at the age of sixty-three, he was a director or adviser for thirty-two different enterprises. He had been head of the Henry Hooker Carriage Company, an organizer and officer of the Hygeia Ice Company, president of the Woodruff Shop in Mount Carmel, the Mount Carmel Bolt Com- pany, and the New Haven Palladium newspaper, a di- rector in the City Bank, and a trustee of the New Ha- ven Savings Bank.
PLANTING MACHINES AND HARROWS
D. W. Shares, a practical farmer of Hamden, invent- ed in 1857 several labor-saving tools for hoeing and planting. These were patented and took prizes at state and county fairs. When their manufacture made them available to farmers everywhere, Mr. Shares asserted that he had invented them for his own use, but that after discovering their value he desired others to share in their benefits, "for the purpose of doing good and mak- ing money." This combination of altruism and a desire for profit was both frank and Yankee. He added that he had raised potatoes with the use of these tools, in weedy soil, without using the common hoe at all, and only a day's hoeing to the acre was necessary. He trite- ly warned the farmers that "this implement, like a plow or any other tool, works much the best when kept clean and bright; and any farmers who are in the habit of leaving their tools for days and weeks in suc- cession by the sides of their fields exposed to heat and
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.