USA > Connecticut > New Haven County > Hamden > The history of Hamden, Connecticut, 1786-1959 > Part 26
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Mention in the town records of grading "on the hill at James Doolittle's saw mill" brings to mind both the fact that Mr. Doolittle had become selectman in 1906, and also the very old story of the mill and the Doolittle home on West Todd Street. Allotted by New Haven Colony to Reverend James Pierpont, the first pastor of the First Church in New Haven, it was willed by him to the church and sold by the church to Waite Chat- terton, who built the mill there soon after 1747. From his great-grandson it passed to Heman Doolittle, a cousin, born in Hamden in 1799. Heman's son, Oswin, born in 1830, passed it on to his son James who was born in 1874. James still continued to "saw wood," a desirable accomplishment for a politician!
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Control over roads built under state aid was placed in the hands of the state highway commissioner by a law passed in 1907. This action relieved the town authori- ties of a heavy burden and responsibility. Immediately Hamden planned $20,000 worth of road work and also appropriated $5,000 for the purpose from town funds.
The selectmen spoke in their annual report of the recent substitution of corrugated metal pipes for small plank culverts and bridges-a little higher in cost but an eventual saving, for planking lasted scarcely more than one season, continually had to be repaired, and was often dangerous. "Even with the constant atten- tion given, holes break through [planking], and the liability to damage is great." Among the street-depart- ment assets listed in the town inventory were "tar ket- tle, two push brooms, ox chain, and 6384 feet of chest- nut plank."
INDUSTRIAL AND CIVIC CHANGES
The principal industries of Hamden in 1909 were listed:
Agriculture
Carriage and automobile hardware
Storage and mixing high explosive
Pruning shears
Suspender web
Japanning
Insulated wire
Smelting
Trap rock
Brickmaking
Ornamental concrete
Brick-making in the eastern part of the town had grown into a large industry. The Horace Shares yards, through the use of improved machinery and coal instead of
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wood for fuel, had rapidly increased their annual out- put to over 30,000,000 bricks.
In 1909 there was in existence in Mount Carmel a National Sales Company, Inc., authorized to "sell, manufacture, import, export, and deal in any and all kinds of merchandise and manufactured articles, stocks and bonds, and real estate." The incorporators meant to cover a thoroughly comprehensive field!
Judge Willis Cook of Mount Carmel, who occupied the Hamden bench from 1907 to 1917, had entered the employ of Frederick Ives at the age of ten and he re- mained with the Axle Works for forty years, being superintendent for twenty years. His mother was Wil- lis Miller's sister. Mr. Cook purchased the business after Mr. Miller's death, and actively managed it until 1907, when he sold the property to the New Haven Water Company. During his ownership of the factory he was appointed Mount Carmel postmaster, and the post-office was in the factory building. During the occu- pancy of the Axle factory by the Liberty Cartridge Company who came there in 1911, the building burned.
The Mount Carmel Traprock Company set up its unpopular works at the head of the Sleeping Giant, and insult was added to injury, for besides the affront to its appearance there was the noise of blasting and of the stone crusher which broke up hundreds of tons of trap- rock. The stone was shipped out on trolley convey- ances, and a spur track was run from Whitney Avenue to the quarry.
Residents along Whitney Avenue complained of the rumbling and thundering of the heavy trolleys, which actually shook the windows and dishes in their homes. The trolley company cut heavily into the freight busi-
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ness of the railroad, and activity was not confined to the daylight hours; far into the night they clattered by; and sometimes the railroad engines were added, shunt- ed over a connecting switch located a short distance above the Mount Carmel depot.
After George Andrews became town clerk in 1904, his diary contained little more than routine items. On the day of his appointment he had noted tersely two events, "Appointed town clerk. Chimney burnt out." He spoke of some mining activity, "Men are putting up machinery at copper mine. Cliff and I went up on York Hill [Rocky Top] and burned out the old mine." He ground the mowing-machine knives, went to camp meeting and singing school, had a barn raising, and measured wood on Wilmot land. But there was no more of the former neighborly visiting and eating with friends, and going to Grange meetings; and there was a difference in the accounts of Herculean tasks which he and his son used to do on the farm-crops, cattle, wood, roadwork, and building. Instead of the familiar "Cliff helped me," the items began to read "I helped Cliff."
When he died in 1909, the town report carried sin- cere words of praise from the selectmen. Mr. An- drews' successor as town clerk, Almon J. Deane, had been station agent at Mount Carmel since 1883.
The National Friends of Boys Club came into Ham- den in 1909, and a branch was incorporated in High- wood under the leadership of Walter Kenyon, Benja- min Broadbent, and Frank Warner. The purpose was the sponsorship of "group work, penny savings banks, trade classes, and projects designed to rescue boys from evil influences." Walter Kenyon, who had begun his
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long service as tax collector in 1905, was the first Boy Scout master in Hamden, and always took an active interest in work for boys.
By 1910, the town's grand list had grown to $4,000,000, and its indebtedness had been reduced in less than ten years from $65,000 to $18,000. The New Haven Water Company protested their taxes to the extent of an appeal to the courts, but the selectmen sat down with representatives of the Company, and report- ed this outcome:
While we could not altogether share the views of the Water Company as to a fair valuation, we did not feel that we would be justified in standing out in the mat- ter and incurring the expense of the suit; so an agree- ment was reached which appeared to be reasonably satisfactory to all concerned, and the suit was with- drawn.
The Water Company provided free water for the new watering trough which was set up at the main corner in Centerville, in exchange for which the Mill River ford at the Web Shop bridge was fenced in to prevent the watering of horses there or driving through the stream. Water was piped into the town hall, although the schools still used water pails and the common drink- ing cup.
The erection of the Centerville watering trough was the sixth in the town, and indicated that the day of the horse was not yet over, in spite of the fact that double tracks on the trolley line were being extended to Mount Carmel, and it was the heyday of the trolleys for pas- senger travel. The increased service which they offered to the public may have been given in anticipation of competition from the automobile, although at this time there were very few licensed automobiles in New Ha-
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ven. Dixwell Avenue was given double tracks as far out as Church Street in Hamden.
The report of the clerk of the court rather apologet- ically itemized the meager funds in his care, and added: "It should be bourne in mind, however, that the court is not run to make money but for the suppression of crime, and sometimes at a financial loss." The clerk found it hard, as a money-wise Yankee, to take pride in a report which did not show a profit! In naming the improvements to the courtroom, he mentioned a platform which had been raised for the judge in the room shared with the town clerk and the selectmen, and a pen for the prisoners "to separate them from the spec- tators; otherwise, if they are not watched closely, they are liable to walk out."
Women voters made their first appearance at Ham- den polls in the fall election of 1910, when sixteen of them embraced their legal privilege of casting votes on the school question. The schools gained a woman super- intendent a year later when Miss Margaret Keefe suc- ceeded Mr. Tobin. Teachers received an increase to $ IO a week in pay, and no objection was made to build- ing the Mount Carmel school such as was voiced in regard to the erection of the Highwood school a few years before.
The West Woods school burned and the $400 for which it had been insured had to be augmented with a town appropriation of $1,500 to rebuild it. The Whit- neyville school received from Frederick D. Grave, whose home overlooked the grounds, the gift of twenty- eight Norway maples which were set out on Arbor Day, intended to provide shade for the bare and treeless yard. When a park was in later years created there, largely through the influence of the Spring Glen Gar-
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den Club, these maples had reached a lovely maturity, providing a splendid basic start for Eli Whitney Park, so named in recognition of the Whitney family who had given the property to the town, and the short street along its easterly side was named Eli Road.
VOLUNTEER FIRE COMPANIES
The Highwood Volunteer Fire Company was organ- ized in December, 1896. Enthusiastic efforts to raise money toward providing community fire protection were made through fairs and dances, socials and suppers, which were carried out with the able assistance of a Ladies Auxiliary. Trading stamps from the purchase of merchandise were collected and used in obtaining articles with which to furnish the Star Cycle Club head- quarters. A lawn party was held in a big tent bought from the Kickapoo Indian Medicine Company. In 1897 the land on which the present firehouse now stands was acquired, but between that time and 1909 temporary quarters were used until there were sufficient funds to erect a building. The New Lebanon Mission building on Morse Street belonged to the company in 1899.
An appeal to the town for fire hydrants resulted in the installation of twelve in Highwood in 1898; and a two-wheel hose cart became the first apparatus in Ham- den. Walter Kenyon gave an improvised hook and ladder outfit in 1905, which was soon after replaced with a truck built by the members. During the summer of 1909 these diligent members built the present fire- house in their spare time; the bell tower on it was a gift from Samuel Flight, and the bronze bell from Walter
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Kenyon. Charles Loller, who later served for seventeen years as Hamden's fire chief, began his long fire-fighting experience in 1900 as chief of the Highwood company. Michael Whalen has been associated outstandingly with the activities of this company over the years, and after serving a long term as its president, he was honored with the presidency of the State Firemen's Association.
The Centerville Company grew out of the Hamden Athletic Association which flourished in 1902 in the promotion of baseball and field competitions. In 1904 the Association organized the fire company with Thom- as Hartley as president, and meetings were for some time held in Roland Finley's barn. In 1908 they were permitted to build quarters on the town hall property; and the town soon after bought from them the four hydrants which they had installed at their own expense on Whitney Avenue. Their modest fire-fighting equip- ment of hose and two-wheel reel, hatchets, helmets, etc., was inherited from the Web Shop, whose fire-purpose water tower used to be a conspicuous high point in the Centerville scene.
The Whitneyville Improvement Association was or- ganized in 1907 under the leadership of Frederick Grave, Morris Steinert, and T. Whitney Blake. They effected many civic accomplishments, chief of which were street lights on Whitney Avenue and the founding of the Whitneyville Fire Company in 1909, whose first equipment they supplied-a "jumper" and 500 feet of hose, 2 lanterns, 3 helmets, an axe, and a bar. These were at first housed in the Putnam barn on the south- east corner of Whitney and Putnam Avenues, but in 1910 an old building was purchased from the Winches- ter Repeating Arms Company and set up on Putnam Avenue. Theodore Sucher was the first captain, and
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Henry Hall, who later served the town as second select- man, finance board member, representative, senator, and county commissioner, was head of the group for eighteen years. The first piece of automotive fire appa- ratus in Hamden was obtained by this company in 1914 through private subscriptions together with an appro- priation of $ 1,000 from the town.
The Humphrey Company was organized in 1911 and soon erected its building on Circular Avenue in Ham- den Plains. The Mount Carmel Company was formed in the same year, and John Whitham, its president for seventeen years, was also honored with the presidency of the State Firemen's Association.
In these early years of elementary fire fighting, nothing outranked a fire for total community excite- ment. As news of the blaze spread, the street would fill with people running and shouting, women with their long white aprons flapping, children racing each other to be first at the scene, firemen struggling with their equipment and calling out orders and suggestions about speeding up the clumsy apparatus which rumbled and bumped along the road in company with the clat- tering hoofs of frightened horses-all in a great cloud of dust. The house usually burned to the ground in spite of the firemen's strenuous efforts with the inade- quate equipment, although they, in company with the owners and all the neighbors, often saved an apprecia- ble amount of the furniture.
The Highwood and Whitneyville firehouses and the town hall were the designated voting places when vot- ing machines were authorized in 1913. The clerk of the town court, who was also probation officer, reported: "It is needless to say that the officials are kept busy;
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they, like the firemen, have no hour they can call their own."
HAMDEN PLAINS CHURCH CENTENNIAL
The one-hundredth anniversary of the founding of the Hamden Plains Methodist Church was celebrated on December 28, 1913. The sum of $2,000 had been spent in repairing and redecorating the building for the occasion, and more than one hundred invitations were sent to former members, bidding them back to the ser- vice commemorating the labors of Sybil Tuttle and the six other members of the first class. The day was a bright and sunny Sabbath, and at ten o'clock the church bell began to toll out one hundred strokes, bringing to the minds of listeners remembrance of joys and sorrows, of departed friends, of the comfort of spiritual expe- riences, and a solemn contemplation of the past and present importance of the work of this church in the community.
The morning sermon was preached by Reverend Wil- liam Estes, who had been pastor in 1861, assisted by Reverend John Haugh, pastor in 1876, and Reverend George Dusinberre, pastor in 1895. At the luncheon gathering a poem, written for the occasion by Miss Agusta Mix, was read. A carefully prepared historical address was delivered in the afternoon by Edward B. Alling, who presented the church with a bronze tablet in memory of the first class.
Among the hymns sung on the occasion was one said to have been John Hampden's favorite *- "Our God, Our Help in Ages Past," particularly appropriate for a
* Winston Churchill, in his radio report of the Atlantic Charter meeting, when he said that the hymn was sung there.
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commemorative service in a town named for him. The Hamden Plains Church has been especially noted for the fervor and effectiveness of its singing, dating back to the old days when the congregation, in singing, turned around in their pews to face the choir in the rear bal- cony. One of the older members says that a perennial favorite hymn has been:
On Jordan's rugged banks I stand, And cast a wishful eye, To Canaan's fair and happy land, Where my possessions lie.
The singing in this church made a lasting impression upon the writer, when as a child of ten she was invited by her father to walk with him from Whitneyville through Treadwell Street to worship at Hamden Plains. As an inducement he offered to show her the strangest tree she ever saw. No tree beside the hot and dusty road was unusual and the riddle was not solved until, upon shaking hands with the pastor, she learned that his name was Reverend Edward O. Tree. The hymn "Guide Me, O Thou Great Jehovah" was ren- dered so well as to be remembered with especial pleas- ure through the succeeding years.
CHANGES AT GRACE CHURCH
Among the former pupils of the Rectory School was Abbott Augustus Lowe of New York, who gave the church its rectory, as a memorial to Reverend Charles W. Everest. Mr. and Mrs. William Brewster gave the parish house in memory of Reverend Joseph Brewster, whose home at Spruce Bank, Mount Carmel, they occu- pied after his death. In 1914 a beautiful altar, chancel
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rail, sanctuary lamp, and brass candlesticks were secured, appropriately blending with the lovely Ionic columns and Greek border, making the church rank architectur- ally with the best of Connecticut churches. The orig- inal round-topped cupola had been replaced in 1847 by a 90-foot steeple designed by Henry Austin. During the year taken for its erection, services were held in Temperance Hall. When it was set afire by lightning in 1895, the blaze was extinguished with the help of the Web Shop hose and water power. Some of the firemen, clustered inside the building, had turned the hose up into the burning steeple and were promptly washed from their precarious perches by the force of the stream cascading back upon them from the tapered steeple top. This ill-fated heavenly pointer was blown down in 1915 by a severe wind storm, and crashed to the ground in complete wreckage, missing the old town hall by no more than four feet. In recent years a new and well- balanced steeple has been built, topped by a gold cross which was the gift of Architect J. Frederick Kelly.
ST. ANN'S CHURCH
A new church was established in Highwood in 1910, the Roman Catholic parish of St. Ann. For fifteen years Masses were said in the old New Lebanon Mis- sion building on Morse Street, before the yellow brick church and rectory were built at Dixwell Avenue and Arch Street in 1925. It was a mission church without a resident pastor, and it was ministered to by the priests of St. Anthony's in New Haven-a national church using the Italian language. Because of the large num- ber of Italian Catholics settling in Highwood, the par- ish grew rapidly, and in a few years the administration
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of the parish work was given to an Italian-speaking as- sistant from St. John the Baptist Church near-by.
ST. STEPHEN'S CHURCH
Catholic families in the State Street section of the town were gathered into a new parish in June, 1915, under the guidance of Father Downes of the Church of Our Lady of Mount Carmel. For a while services were held in the old schoolhouse. George Kreis var- nished a few chairs and brought from his home a rug and two pots of red geraniums, and these, with two can- dles and a crucifix, were the only decorations for the first Mass, which was celebrated by Father Charles Kelly. The attendance was good and the worshipers sat on the old school desks, as well as upon the freshly varnished chairs, one of which clung stubbornly to the trousers of the man who occupied it.
While services were being held in the school, the church building was being rapidly erected. In six weeks the roof was finished, and some old pews from a church being demolished in Waterbury were set in place for the first Sunday morning. These pews had not been fastened to the floor and in consequence were somewhat unsteady. The combined weight of several heavy wo- men upon one of them proved too great a strain, and it came down with a mighty crash during the most sol- emn part of the Mass. Father Kelly turned to face the congregation and remarked that the ladies should have no fear, as they could not fall far! From Sunday to Sunday, the church showed progress in its comforts and decorations, and by the following Easter was entirely finished. Father Kelly remained in charge of the parish
*
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for four years, when he was succeeded by Father Thom- as Sullivan from St. Ann's Church in Highwood.
PLANS FOR A HIGH SCHOOL
The town report of 1912 referred to the increasing number of children who were seeking high-school edu- cation, and it contained estimates of the cost of main- taining a high school in Hamden at a probable saving to the town. The school authorities were stung into action by the refusal of the New Haven Board of Edu- cation to accept pupils from Hamden merely upon recommendation. It was claimed that the Hamden schools, being ungraded, did not equal the standards set by the grade schools of New Haven. To meet this situation, the Hamden School Board set up special classes for seventh- and eighth-grade pupils of the whole town at Highwood, Centerville, and Whitney- ville. Experienced teachers were in charge, and in a short time the New Haven school authorities admitted Hamden pupils to New Haven High School without examination. The first grade-school graduation exer- cises were held in June, 1912, in the town hall, and in the following fall, seventy instead of the average num- ber of twenty pupils attended high school.
OTHER SCHOOL AFFAIRS
There was an almost complete lack of library facili- ties in the school system in 1913. In her annual report, Miss Keefe said,
Hamden has practically no public library facilities, while our schools are without anything to supply this need in the way of reference books, encyclopedias, or
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reading to supplement the single text book with which we are provided in each subject taught.
Hamden Plains school No. II burned, and a new eight-room school was erected on Church Street. This building and subsequent ones which came thick and fast with the rapid increase in population was made of brick, much of which came from the Davis brickyards in the eastern part of town.
Congestion in the State Street school made a new four-room building a necessity; and by 1914 the wood- en building in Whitneyville was closed, and a larger structure erected on Putnam Avenue property pur- chased from the Winchester Repeating Arms Company. In it a high-school department began with fifty-one pupils, but public confidence in the venture was lacking, and it had to be abandoned. As the superintendent's report said, "It was a radical innovation, and it was confronted with the most bitter opposition and adverse criticism-condemned without a trial."
An unbroken record of fifty years of teaching in the public schools of Hamden was reached in 1915 by Miss Sue Dickerman of Mount Carmel. She taught her first class soon after the close of the Civil War. Although only one of many "Miss Dickerman's" who taught in Mount Carmel, she was the only one whose services extended to half a century. Not only did her pupils think of her with love and gratitude for her person- ality and ability, but in recognition of her services the School Board observed the occasion of her retirement with the gift of a handsome morocco-bound book, an appropriate symbol of her life's work.
Miss Florence Peck removed her school from Wal- lingford to Hamden in 1916, establishing it in a new
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building on a high commanding rise of hillside across the road from her father's home on West Woods Road. This well-run country private school was called the Hillfield School. It maintained the characteristic at- mosphere of refinement and culture which had always been associated with Mount Carmel. Many years be- fore, when Mrs. Harmon Wakefield left her grand- mother's house on Evergreen Avenue to visit Mrs. Willis Miller in the old Sherman place south of the Mount Carmel meetinghouse, the grandmother sighed thoughtfully as she remarked, "Ah, they're grand in Carmel!"
Perhaps they were grand in Carmel because they were influenced by the grandeur of the Sleeping Giant. This majestic monument has been loved by genera- tions of men who have looked upon its beauty and felt that somehow it rightfully belonged to the whole pub- lic. But by 1915 it was apparent to everyone who looked toward the mountain that the unsightly inroads already made by the trap-rock company into the back of the Giant's head would soon destroy the beautiful and im- posing figure-unless something were done at once to stop it.
It was fantastic to suppose that the old stone Giant, after so many millennia, could be lost, or in the ab- sence of Indians, scalped! Public sentiment, roused from esthetic to civic feeling, was moved to determined activity, public meetings were held, and a movement for the protection of the Sleeping Giant range was begun under the leadership of Professor James Toumey and Dr. Anson Phelps Stokes. This campaign was inter- rupted by the World War I.
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