USA > Connecticut > New Haven County > Hamden > The history of Hamden, Connecticut, 1786-1959 > Part 28
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Many town reports had referred to the need of ex- tending the Dixwell Avenue trolley line which ended at Benham Street, to Centerville, and at last the Con-
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The History of Hamden
necticut Company was ordered to build the extension. The town was persuaded, however, to accept instead, bus service running between the town hall and the New Haven line.
A Board of Police Commissioners was set up to over- see the growing police department, and a Board of Fire Commissioners who appointed Charles Loller fire chief was established in 1925. The cost of the six companies in 1925 was $25,461, and the equipment included the following items:
2 750-gallon pumpers, triple combination
2 550-gallon pumpers, triple combination
2 350-gallon pumpers, triple combination
3 combination chemicals
I hook-and-ladder truck
36 21/2-gallon extinguishers
7 21/2-gallon Foamite extinguishers
8,150 feet of 21/2-inch hose
2,150 feet of chemical hose
202 hydrants
Two more companies were organized at this time- Mix District in 1924 built a firehouse on property given them by Fred and Lucy Kirk on Shepard Avenue. Fred Kirk was president for many years, and his brother Dwight the first captain. Dunbar built a community house in 1926 which also housed the fire apparatus. The truck which they inherited as their first firefighter re- fused to go uphill in the expected manner and always had to be backed up. William Hindinger was the first president. The Dunbar Community Club, formed at the same time, sponsored dances and suppers in the real old-fashioned manner-a country style which they still practice.
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Only the Giant Sleeps
Spring Glen was a rapidly growing residential sec- tion; land for a new school was acquired there and a new Catholic church, St. Rita's, was formed from the mother parish of Our Lady of Mount Carmel. Its first building, standing on Park Avenue and now used for a church hall, was dedicated in 1923, with Reverend Matthew Brady as the first pastor.
SLEEPING GIANT PARK
The campaign to save the Sleeping Giant from fur- ther mutilation was renewed after the close of the World War. The Sleeping Giant Park Association came into existence in 1924 as an offshoot from the Con- necticut Forestry Association. Subscriptions were solic- ited, and a part of the mountain was purchased and turned over to the state of Connecticut for a state park. About 500 members were added to the Association, and some $ 12,000, along with gifts of land, was secured. The first and largest piece, 129 acres on the second mountain, was acquired from John E. Heaton. By De- cember, 197 acres had been turned over to the state.
Special credit for the enterprise was due to Professor James Toumey, Bancel LaFarge, J. Walter Bassett, Miss Susan Whitney, and other leaders; but there would have been no general acquisition of land nor preservation of the head and contour of the Giant, had not many others helped-officials of the state, members of the Yale faculty, the Park Board, and those who gave land, money, or services. Some of the gifts were remarkable-$8,500 from two sisters in Waterbury, $5,000 from an anonymous Boston contributor, and sums from local people ranging from $1 to $13,000.
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The History of Hamden
In the shadow of the Giant, one of two new golf courses was laid out in 1924 and called the Giant Val- ley course, on property formerly belonging to Frank Butterworth and George Dudley. The Meadowbrook course on Dixwell Avenue in Centerville was laid out on land which had been a prize dairy farm belonging to H. Irving Todd.
THE LIBRARY FUND
Mary, widow of Willis E. Miller, died in 1924. In her will she left $ 100,000 to the town, subject to the life use of her daughter Gertrude. She specified that the bequest was to be used for the establishment of a public library, including the purchase of a site if needed, and the erection of a building, preferable near the cen- ter of the town, in memory of Mr. Miller.
The two places in the town where library facilities were maintained were in the Centerville Library, and in the old Mount Carmel schoolhouse which was given to the Mount Carmel Library Association when the new school was built. That community particularly ap- preciated the work of Miss Laura Dickerman, librarian, and in the Hamden school superintendent's report of 1925 tribute was paid to her patient and careful help to school pupils in their choice of books.
The Whitneyville Woman's Club, with the assist- ance of others, had increased to 735 the number of vol- umes in the library of the Putnam school.
HAMDEN BANK AND TOWN FINANCES
In line with the growth of the town in every par- ticular, promoters of a Hamden bank felt that such an
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institution would be desirable and progressive, especially if it was located in a place convenient to the large indus- tries and to a great number of the townspeople. The Hamden Bank & Trust Company was organized on August 20, 1924, by George W. Warner, Carle Vande Bogart, Henry F. Hall, Joseph C. Montgomery, Al- mon J. Deane, Ericsson Broadbent, Frank A. Warner, Fred B. Kingsbury, Walter T. Kenyon, and C. Ray- mond Brock. Business was transacted in a building at 862 Dixwell Avenue and, after 1926, in the bank which was erected at the junction of Dixwell and Circular Avenues. Walter Kenyon was the first president, later succeeded by Ericsson Broadbent.
Quarters in the Hamden Bank building were leased by the Government in 1928 for the Hamden post-office, which serves all the town except Mount Carmel which still maintains its branch office.
The Hamden Chamber of Commerce was organized in 1926 to promote the commercial, industrial, and civic interests of the town.
The increased complexity of the town's finances led the selectmen to ask for the employment of professional auditors, and in 1926 a special town meeting instructed the selectmen to engage certified public accountants to audit all of the financial accounts of the town. Hamden was one of the first towns in the state to take this step. An interesting discovery by the auditors was one of fifty-two bank books which they located made out to "School District No. 10, Wilber H. Thomas, treas- urer." It showed a deposit of $59.45 on June 22, 1895, which made a total with the accumulated interest of $310.65. This was placed in the School Fund.
The tax rate, which during the previous decade had varied from 17 mills to 23, was now fixed at 21 mills;
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The History of Hamden
and taxes were made payable semiannually, while town elections were changed from annual to biennial.
The Hamden Bank instituted a school savings sys- tem. During the first year, 68 per cent of the school children (2,278) deposited $8,382.42; and in the fol- lowing year 71 per cent (2,543) participated, their savings being $ 13,221.33.
HEALTH AND RECREATION
On Child Health Day (May I), Webb Field in Spring Glen was the scene of an elaborate demonstra- tion of the school work in physical education, when two hundred girls from the upper grades of five schools gave an exhibition of folkdances of various nations. School children performed in a Maypole dance at the annual Community Field Day at Legion Field, and this feature was added to the usual program of athletic events, popular with both the entrants and the specta- tors. The importance of these field days could not be overestimated, in the development of health and sports- manship in the children, and in the opportunity afforded the townspeople to come together in a common interest.
Child-health interest was broadened to include all the town's health problems, which seemed to be too numerous for a single health officer's responsibility. A health survey of the New Haven area that included Hamden was made under the direction of Professor Ira Hiscock of Yale School of Medicine. Within three years the Hamen Board of Health was established. The school doctor, dentist, and nurses were put under the new Board's control, as was the appointment of the health officer.
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Only the Giant Sleeps
The prominence of Field Day activities brought the suggestion that a desirable playground location might be made of Weiss Park on Woodin Street, which had been the home field of the New Haven professional baseball club for several years (since 1922). Nothing came of the plan, although the locality soon became a recreational focal point, for the circus began to make its annual visits, drawing enormous throngs of spectators to the huge field bounded by Putnam Avenue, Dixwell Av- enue, the railroad tracks, and Morse Street. This tract was purchased in 1930 for an airport, which was man- aged by Elijah Williams. A hangar was built, and planes came and went in moderate numbers for a few years to what was known as the "Hamden Airport."
The current popularity of a variety of recreations included an interest in neighborhood "movies," in which Sunday performances were legalized by a close town- meeting vote, 70 to 63. There were then two motion picture theaters in the town, the Strand and the Dix- well, and more recently the Whitney.
A NEW CHURCH
In the rapidly growing Spring Glen district, an un- denominational community church held its services in a building which had been the milkhouse of the Webb dairy farm, as well as the first Spring Glen clubhouse. One hundred fifty families were interested in the church, and Reverend Victor Brown was called as the first pas- tor. About two hundred children were in the Sunday School, and an addition of six rooms for their accommo- dation was made to the building. This created a slightly complicated legal status, in that the new part belonged
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The History of Hamden
to the church, while the lot and the original structure remained the property of the Webb family.
SCHOOL MATTERS
The School Board reported in 1929, "Hamden must soon erect a high school. We are pleased to say that the necessary ground has been selected and contracted for." This was a slight overstatement, but an option had been taken on the Alva Humiston property on Dixwell Avenue, after a town meeting authorized the erection of a school. A school was indeed needed, and 760 local pupils were ready to enter it.
In ten years, grade-school enrollment had doubled. The Helen Street School needed an addition three years after it was built, and additions to Putnam and Spring Glen came concurrently. The increased demand for playground facilities during the summer months led to the appointment of Stanley Leeke as full-time super- intendent of recreation. A native son of Hamden, he was a direct descendant of Russell Leeke. Under his direction nine school playgrounds were equipped for the summer, and nineteen young people were appointed to supervise the children. Under the management of a citizen's committee of 88 people, the tenth and largest Community Field Day was held, with 500 contestants and several thousand spectators.
A popular innovation in the school program was the establishment of general evening schools; and classes for non-English speaking people were opened at Centerville and State Street, in addition to those already being con- ducted in Highwood. The Centerville classes were sponsored largely by the Felice-Cavallotti Italian-
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American Club, which made Americanization its chief interest.
A school matter once more became the high point of interest in a town meeting. Taking its place in a long history of packed and fiery gatherings of public-minded citizens, the annual town meeting of 1931 marked the climax of the campaign for the new high school. Com- paratively little attention was given to the printed pamphlets which contained the Board of Finance's esti- mate of expenditures for the coming year. Once more the people were roused on an educational matter; this time the site for the high school was the burning issue. Many residents of the east side of town favored the purchase of the Meadowbrook golf course. But figures were presented, which seemed to prove that the Hum- iston property on Dixwell Avenue, already secured by option, would be nearer the center of the school popu- lation. Many thrifty souls could not bear to see the $ 10,000 option wasted. Some of the town officials re- garded the issue as a test vote of confidence in the School Board. The moderator, in spite of his thirty years of experience, was hard pressed to keep order. When all the orators had hoarsely subsided and the vote was taken, the decision stood that "the Board of Selectmen be authorized to obtain title to the Alva Humiston property, containing twenty-two acres on the west side of Dixwell Avenue, on which the town has an option."
On Thanksgiving Day, 1931, the whole town was shocked and saddened by the death of Walter T. Ken- yon, who had served as tax collector for twenty-six years. Hundreds of townspeople who knew him as an official of the town and as an active member of the Hamden Plains Church mourned the loss of a good
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The History of Hamden
friend and a good man. His sister Mae, who had been his office assistant since 1914, has since carried on the duties of the office.
On December 17, 1931, the Hamden Bank and Trust Company, caught in a depression which was nation-wide, closed its doors. The closing was a heavy blow to the town officials, some of whom held responsible positions in it. The town collected the treasurer's defaulted bond of $65,000 from the surety company after five years in the courts, during which the judgment of the United States District Court was upheld by the Circuit Court of Appeals, and an appeal to the United States Supreme Court to review the case was refused. The town's de- posits in the defunct institution were frozen for a time, with some consequent embarrassment.
Due to the economic situation, the selectmen had many requests for employment, and they provided such work as widening back roads and constructing drains, using hand labor so as to employ the greatest number of men. From the "round robin" football exhibition of four college teams in the Yale Bowl for the benefit of unemployed, Hamden received $1,606.89; and four Hamden groups contributed to the cause as follows: the Police Ball proceeds of $557.60; the Democratic Club added $200; the Teachers League $493; and a public school musicale program $164. Most of this money was spent for fuel for needy families. Relief appropriations from town funds rose in this period to $105,086, declining thereafter. Federal aid for outside poor was made available by the state, and Federal money was spent on roads, bridges, painting, and re- pairs of public buildings, and library work.
Under the E.R.A. and the W.P.A., unemployed men to the average number of three hundred were
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Only the Giant Sleeps
given work on construction projects. Thirty young men went to C.C.C. camps. The New Haven Water Company permitted needy householders to cut firewood on their extensive wooded land, under the town's super- vision. During the winter months many men took ad- vantage of this opportunity, and the wood was deliv- ered to them by the town.
The school children, eager as always to help, made donations of food for Thanksgiving baskets which were sent, in 1931, to sixty-two families. In the schools there were many children who themselves lacked sufficient food and clothing. The undernourished were helped with Community Chest funds, and a "shoe fund" was administered by the school nurses, contributions being made to it by the Teachers League, the Whitneyville Woman's Club, and the Community Club.
Another epidemic of infantile paralysis in 1932 de- layed the opening of school until October. Splendid work in the special classes for subnormal children was reported from year to year. On every annual inspection day, they prepared and served a meal to the School Board. They fashioned properties for school dramat- ics, and in many ways were made to feel a useful part of the school system.
Library books became somewhat more conveniently available to Centerville children when, with the insti- tution of the new dial telephone system, the Centerville exchange was moved to Augerville, and the old build- ing was converted to the use of the Hamden Public Library Association. The library's quarters had been across the way in the very room where old-time town meetings used to be held.
The School Board was disposed to comment on the lack of library facilities for school children, a lack which
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The History of Hamden
Miss Keefe had frequently pointed out in her annual superintendent's reports. After the Dixwell Avenue branch of the New Haven Public Library refused its privileges to children from Hamden, there were seven schools which had no access whatever to general libra- ries. The School Board expressed gratitude to the two small library groups on the east side of town who were giving help, and to the Whitneyville Woman's Club which had been largely responsible for the accumulation of 1,724 volumes at the Putnam school. The town and state grant of $400 a year for school reference books was entirely inadequate, and an inventory of the books in the different schools showed the following situation:
Church Street School 80 volumes
Dunbar
30 volumes
Dixwell and Pine
75 volumes
Newhall
300 volumes
Spring Glen
252 volumes
Helen
940 volumes
State 200 volumes (two sets of reference books
provided by the principal)
Private schools in Hamden's history seem to have come into existence whenever there was a lack in public educational facilities. Whether or not the dearth of library books inspired their coming, two private schools were established in Whitneyville. The Hamden Hall Associates, who acquired the school for boys founded by Mr. Cushing, admitted girls as well and included a wider age group. On Whitney Avenue, George V. Lar- son set up an imposing brick building overlooking Lake Whitney, in which he established a secretarial school and junior college, in which many Hamden girls have been pupils.
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Only the Giant Sleeps GIANT'S HEAD SAVED
The crusade for saving the Sleeping Giant had been moving steadily forward, and in ten years the Associa- tion and the state together had spent $185,000. The publicly owned land amounted in 1924 to 311 acres; by 1928 it had risen to 654, and in 1933 there were 935 acres embraced in the park's holdings. A check on the number of visitors from 1924 to 1928 showed ap- proximately 29,000 in a year-a number probably far less than a similar tabulation would reveal today. As Professor Toumey said, it was "unposted, unfenced, open for all to enjoy and to have in common ownership; the Sleeping Giant-yours, mine, and everybody's- dedicated to the upbuilding of moral and physical health through the recreational opportunities which it affords."
The acquisition of park land held by 1928 was but half the battle for the possession of the mountain. In 1930, $55,000 had to be raised to purchase the Giant's head from its owner, Mrs. Willis Cook; and the quarry lease which still had eighteen years to run, was bought in 1933 for $30,000. The leader in this stupendous project was Arnold G. Dana, who as a boy of twelve in 1875 fell two hundred feet from the precipice on the Giant's head, while attempting with three companions to descend the face of the rock. He miraculously es- caped injury other than broken bones, and was carried to his Hillhouse Avenue home by Willis Miller of the Mount Carmel Axle Works, and by the older Or- rin Dickerman.
Mr. Dana's subsequent devotion to the Giant that preserved his life in its bosom on that fateful day was the impelling force by which this staggering sum of
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The History of Hamden
money was raised. The benefactor, who came back after an absence of fifty-five years to play the part of little David, was the younger son of James Dwight Dana, professor of geology at Yale, and the grandson of an- other Yale scientist, Benjamin Silliman.
In the midst of the campaign for saving the moun- tain, the Sleeping Giant Association brought suit against the quarry company, in 1931. The principal issue at the trial was the provision in the quarry lease which forbade any quarrying in sight of Mount Carmel Avenue, to the south of the Giant's head. The Asso- ciation interpreted the clause to mean that no bare rock should show from the road on the south, while the quarry company's interpretation was that the quarry should not face the road.
In an opinion favorable to the Association, Judge Carl Foster said:
Illustration is dangerous, but suppose in wars of the past, the besieger warned the defender of the citadel that if the latter showed his face at any opening in the wall, the besieger would shoot. If the defender showed half his face, would he be heard to complain if the besieger's missile found its mark? If the quarry com- pany's contention be carried to its logical conclusion, then 99 per cent of the rock exposed by quarrying might show on Mount Carmel Avenue, and yet they would feel that they had not violated this covenant.
On an appeal to the Supreme Court, Judge Foster's opinion was sustained.
At the Association's well-earned celebration in Octo- ber, 1933, President Dana remarked,
If asked why the money was forthcoming in 1930 for the purchase of the land, though vainly sought in ear- lier years; and how it came about that $30,000 for
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Only the Giant Sleeps
the quarry lease was so quickly raised [in one month's time ] in 1933-it was in both cases because of the criti- cal situation; the measures taken to protect the head were rendered imperative by the scalping process on the poor old Giant's pate, which was making such rapid progress that in a few months more, there would have been nothing there worth saving. Then the late pro- posal of the quarry company to open a new quarry high on the northwestern side of the head, compelled imme- diate action.
Hamden should be foremost in continuous gratitude to the generous, public-spirited people who made pos- sible the permanent security of the mountain from fur- ther defacement, and who gave to the Giant the priceless gift of uninterrupted slumbers through eternity; for the Sleeping Giant is the outstanding, imposing land- mark of our town, seen and recognized for miles by land and sea.
CHURCH CENTENNIAL
The Whitneyville Congregational Church celebrated in 1934 the one hundredth anniversary of the erection of its meetinghouse. Representatives of the other churches, both Catholic and Protestant, attended and spoke with good will and fellowship of their mutual concern for the religious welfare of the town. The church's location, so close to the green banks and beau- tiful waters of Lake Whitney, affords an unparalleled view from its windows. On that day of celebration in this house of God, saturated with a hundred years of faith and devotion, there came forcefully to the wor- shipers the utter appropriateness of the Psalm,
The Lord is my shepherd. I shall not want. . .. He leadeth me beside the still waters. He restoreth my
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The History of Hamden
soul. . . . Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life, and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever.
SCHOOL GROWTH
Religious instruction to pupils in the seventh and eighth grades was made available in an expanding pub- lic-school program, in which piano classes under Carl J. Jensen, and instruction in stringed and wind instru- ments, was given by the New Haven Institute of Music.
Work on the construction of a high-school building proceeded slowly, owing to the necessity of obtaining the approval of both Federal and state authorities. Through the issuance of bonds by the town, $700,000 was made available, PWA reimbursing them approxi- mately $ 165,000. The town made further appropria- tion of $50,000 to furnish and equip the building. Designed by R. W. Foote and erected by the Industrial Construction Company, the building was finished and dedicated on October 18, 1935, with appropriate cere- monies. It was a thoroughly modern school, with fifty- two classrooms, auditorium, sixteen offices, cafeteria, four gymnasiums, shops, and shower rooms. The new principal, Dr. Herbert Landry, and forty-six teachers began classes for the 1,200 pupils who entered.
Raymond Collins, who had been the faithful and efficient chairman of the School Board for nineteen years, retired from the Board. He had guided the edu- cational affairs of Hamden during the most difficult period of the rapid growth of the town.
The high school was by no means the only important change in the affairs of Hamden in 1935, for George Warner finished his long term of leadership as first
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Only the Giant Sleeps
selectman, which he had held since 1918, and he was succeeded by F. Raymond Rochford who brought to the office the trained mind of a lawyer and many years experience in Hamden's legal and financial affairs.
Another change in the administrative department of the town government was brought about by the death of Almon J. Deane who had been town clerk for more than twenty-five years. His genial, invariable good temper was a bright spot in the town hall, and this tradition was happily continued by his successor, Mich- ael J. Whalen, whose encumbency marked the begin- ning of salary payment to the town clerk instead of the old fee system.
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