USA > Connecticut > New Haven County > Hamden > The history of Hamden, Connecticut, 1786-1959 > Part 30
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
Three new post office quarters came-in the new business building at the corner of Whitney Avenue and Ives Street in Mount Carmel, a new building in Whit- neyville on Putnam Avenue, and one on Scott Street on the west side. The Hamden Chronicle weekly news- paper begun in 1946 by Marshall and Richard Harris is now published by Charles Lenahan. An impressive number of bank branches and insurance companies have located in Hamden.
3
The Giant Views Change and Progress
Photo by Ana-films
Courtesy of A . J. Tefft
The Sleeping Giant
>
-
66
4
-
455
The Old Order Changeth
The police headquarters building was erected next to the Miller Library, and at that time the department had the notable addition of a detective bureau, and the town's first policewoman, Bertha Shea.
With the establishment of this new civic building, attention was once more given to the 68-acre nearby Meadowbrook property and the oft-mentioned possi- bilities it offered for a civic center in which the town could fully accommodate its municipal buildings for years to come. The price in 1950 was $250,000. The professional planning groups had advised the town to buy it, but the town officials could not see making the expenditure while other pressing necessities had to be met. By 1956 the price was $450,000.
The up-to-date building code adopted in 1949 had soon to add a new provision, for WNHC whose two radio towers stand in bold relief against the sky off Cir- cular Avenue, had set up a transmitter on Gaylord Mountain and had established the first television broad- casting service in the state; causing the necessity for an ordinance to control television aerials.
On Dixwell Avenue the A & P store and Sears, Roe- buck were the significant beginning of a radical change in the grouping of shopping areas. The coming of the Plaza super-shopping center, and subsequently the Hamden Mart nearby, were to some extent influenced in locating here by the Cross Parkway which makes Hamden businesses readily accessible to a maximum number of distant areas. Traffic problems of the town are most noticeable on Dixwell Avenue, and the plan- ned extension of Skiff Street to Mix Avenue will by no means solve the matter.
When Connolly Parkway was constructed from the rear of Spring Glen to Dixwell Avenue, its convenience for high school students was largely in mind, but it now
456
The History of Hamden
serves a larger use. The voters who came to the oldtime town meeting which acted on the name of the extremely short thoroughfare, were there chiefly for this one inter- est-for no comments or criticisms on the proposed $ 1,100,000 annual town budget were voiced.
One of the numerous agitations which have plagued the zoning authorities since the merging of the Town Plan and the Zoning Boards in 1947, was the move to re-zone Dixwell Avenue to Robert Street. One of the first long drawn out tussles, not the last to be taken into the courts, was the status of Paradise Park under private ownership, the town winning the suit and the owner turning the recreational area over to a social organi- zation.
Over the years there has been much talk of the need for a master plan of zoning for Hamden, and the Tech - nical Planning Associates were employed in 1950, pro- ducing a pilot plan; Maurice Rotival's advice was en- gaged in 1953, and five years later John Blackwell was asked to assist the zoning authorities. Lengthy hearings punctuated by angry citizen-opponents' protests, have continued to take place; among them the matter of a food locker in West Woods, an apartment house in Whitneyville, a business area extension in Spring Glen which involved appeal to the courts; and most recently the up-zoning of property in the north end of the town which does not have sewers.
Sewers have been constructed on the east side and more recently on the west side of Hamden, as well as in the Mill Rock area; but extension of sewers above Spring Glen has been delayed. As far back as 1936 there was a petition made that Public Works Adminis- tration federal funds be sought, and in 1943 serious study of the area was made; but the 1947 hearing on the matter showed such strenuous opposition that nothing
The Old Order Changeth 457
was done. While the town has maintained a garbage collection, the matter of trash and refuse disposal has been the householders' problem. The Welton Street dump was closed in 1942 and town authorities confi- dently expected to erect on that site an incinerator, the design for which was made by an architectural firm.
The sum of $165,000 was earmarked for such a building. In 1946 the zoning board changed the classi- fication of the site from "industry" to "zone for munici- pal purposes of garbage and refuse disposal". Public reaction in the east side neighborhood was violent oppo- sition.
Meantime the Arch Street dump near Pine Rock Avenue has recently been closed, and North Haven has made available for Hamden's temporary use the dump on Sackett Point Road. A Citizens Action Com- mittee headed by Health Director Dr. Leonard Parente, was appointed in 1957 to recommend the town's next step, and with counsel from Pirnie sanitary engineers, the committee proposed the landfill disposal method in the salt meadows off State Street.
Whether or not Hamden deserved the appellation "bedroom of New Haven" inasmuch as the residences of a great number of New Haven industrial and busi- ness men as well as of Yale faculty members are in Hamden, there was no doubt that New Haven's ex- pansion would have to be northward as its population grew. Hamden's rapidly increasing residential develop- ments housed a great number of young families whose chief motivation in coming here was the fine school system for which Hamden was noted. The growth of Hamden's population from 21,500 in 1936 to its present 40,000 saw a rise in school enrollment from 5,386 to today's 7,331. A tremendous school building program began, in which new auditoriums were added to five
458
The History of Hamden
schools-State Street, Helen Street, Church Street, Mount Carmel and Putnam Avenue, as well as more classrooms. The old Dixwell Avenue wooden school was torn down and nearby Pine Street School was re- named in honor of the school superintendent Margaret L. Keefe.
Dunbar and Alice Peck Schools were built, and in 1950 four-room additions were necessary for Church Street and Helen Street and auditoriums for Spring Glen and Newhall Schools. In 1954 six rooms were added to Mount Carmel and in 1958 the same number to Alice Peck.
In 1954 the Englehardt Company was asked to make a survey of the school system, which had suffered the loss of teachers to towns which had raised pay scales faster than ours. Special town meetings in both 1946 and 1949 voted raises in teacher salaries. Just as there had been the formation in 1936 of a citizen group (the Education Council) that studied school matters, there was in 1946 the organization of the Citizens for Better Schools.
A special town meeting was held in 1936 on the Edu- cation Council's petition, in which less than one-fourth of the registered voters bothered to vote. The move to reduce the School Board from its then 12 members to five was defeated 1,091 for and 1,331 against; and the move to name School Board members by non- partisan petition choice was defeated 996 for and 1,406 against. The fifth district actually was carried for both proposals.
Miss Keefe's retirement in 1954 marked the end of a 43-year incumbency in the position of superintendent, and no small part of the reputation Hamden enjoyed for having good schools was due to her wise guidance. David Wyllie became superintendent, and had at once
459
The Old Order Changeth
to deal with a pronounced change in the school system, in which the Michael J. Whalen and Sleeping Giant Junior High Schools were built, with Ernest McVey and Joseph Regan respectively as principals. The high school became a three-year course and G. Harold Lloyd became principal after Wilfred Moody's retirement. The last eighth grade graduations were held in 1955, and soon after came the final act that closed an era- the abandonment of West Woods School, the last of the "little red schoolhouses", and we had entered the big time in educational procedure.
St. Rita's parochial school in Spring Glen added another note to the never-done-before pattern, and the Sacred Heart School for Girls became a part of the convent on Cherry Hill. Quinnipiac College, which absorbed Larson Junior College became our first ac- credited four-year college. In an agreement made with the town, the now tax-free institution set up a plan in which six scholarships are given annually to Hamden students recommended by the selectmen.
On Jones Road, the State Board of Education built the Eli Whitney Technical Training School which serves area towns. The state also built the Child Study & Treatment Home on the 50-acre High Meadows plot off Ridge Road.
While the West Woods School was given to the volunteer fire association there was quite foreseeably a short life for its volunteer nature. It is situated in the last nominally rural area of the town, and will undoubtedly soon become a part of the town's fire de- partment.
In other parts of the town the passing of the volun- teer companies was slow. The Highwood company proudly celebrated its 50th anniversary in 1947, but by 1951 its building was abandoned and its territory
460
The History of Hamden
absorbed by the Humphrey Company. But maintenance of the buildings they owned in both Humphrey (on Circular Avenue) and Whitneyville, forced both groups to sell out to the town. North Haven at last organized a fire station on Ridge Road, which brought termination of the long-practiced custom of services in that area from Hamden.
Charles Loller who had been a colorful and able fire chief for a long time ended his duties in 1942, and Raymond Spencer has taken his place. When Albert Purce became fire marshal in 1944, no one had held the official position since the first selectman had relinquished such duties in 1936.
The Red Cross bloodbank program began statewide in 1949, in which regular visits of the bloodmobile were made to the town for the collection of pints of blood from local donors. The local branch bought the Gilbert Peck house; one of the many achievements under the more than 25 years of Mrs. Robert L. R. Eaton's chair- manship. The first Red Cross-sponsored swimming classes for children were conducted in the pool which Dallas Thomas made available on his property, and in 1950 Paradise Park began to serve this purpose.
While hundreds of children have been taught to swim, there are hundreds more who have no opportunity to learn. From time to time there has been a move- ment to plan a public pool for the town, but Hamden is in a watershed area which precludes the installation of a pool in many desirable places. An extremely active committee under the energetic leadership of Francis McNamara made valiant efforts in 1947, but the main- tenance cost as well as the paucity of locations, defeated it. Efforts to have a pool included in the plans for the Sleeping Giant Junior High School were unavailing
461
The Old Order Changeth
because the area is not sewered. With present prospects of an addition to the high school, once more hopes are raised that at last there are no physical reasons against a pool.
Planning for recreation fields which began with the acquisition of land on Newhall Street for Rochford Field, continued; the "new" Legion Field was dedicated on Memorial Day 1942; development of Pine Rock, Bassett Park, Hamden Plains Field, and the field in Centerville behind the Legion building went forward; and a wholly new and challenging recreational area came under the department's charge when the town turned over to it the 104 acres of the erstwhile town farm, which had ceased to operate when inmates dwin- dled to three in 1947. Camping facilities, a nature center, and many other projects can be carried out there.
The Golden Age Club was organized by recreation supervisor Robert Fitzgerald in 1956, and many older people enjoy its activities-such as do not go to Florida! Many Hamden residents of retirement age have either made their home in the southern state or spend their winters there. A Leisure Council which includes ad- visors from recreation, library, police and health depart- ments, helps plan wholesome public activities.
The Better Boys Brigade, organized by Dominic Malaro in Highwood in 1944, had a large member- ship, and the high point of the year was the dinner at the Colonial House which was earned by those who had achieved an A in conduct in school for a year. 'A number of prominent town officials served as waiters. A yearly activity was the pushmobile derby.
The police department has a PAL (Police Athletic League) program, which conducts a similar soapbox
462
The History of Hamden
derby. While juvenile delinquency has not been alarm- ing, it has been present. For several recent years, dam- aging mischief at Hallowe'en has been curbed by en- forcement of a curfew.
After 20 years in which the circus came to Hamden every summer in the old airport grounds, an amendment to the amusement ordinance was made in 1947 requiring an entranceway of no less than 250 front feet to a circus; so, like the ban on fireworks for Fourth of July, one more happy fun-day for children was no more.
Hurricanes, previously an unfamiliar weather type, visited us in 1938, 1944 and 1950, and unlike some other areas, Hamden had less damage in the first one than in the last which did $600,000 damage. In 1948 there was a winter with 21 storms and 71 inches of snow, with a real heat wave in the following July. It was in a July electric storm of more than ordinary violence that three members of the Dorman family were killed by lightning, and others injured as they picknicked near a large tree. Not only did hurricanes cause the loss of many trees, but so did Dutch elm disease which killed 265 in 1946.
F. Raymond Rochford ended his service as first select- man before the end of a term, for he was elected to the judgeship of the newly established probate court in 1947. Gertrude Collins who had been his official secre- tary became clerk of the court. No subsequent head of the government has had such a long period of service as did Edward Sanford, George Warner and Mr. Roch- ford.
Michael J. Whalen held the office until Leon Booth was elected in 1951, and a special election was held to fill the position of third selectman following the with - drawal of the elected candidate James P. Doherty. Albert Connolly was elected.
The Old Order Changeth 463
History repeated itself in the Democratic victory in 1955 when Herbert Hume defeated Mr. Booth, and the Hamden Democrats gained control for the first time in over 50 years. The same situation had occurred at the turn of the century when a 50-year Republican reign was broken. Also in repeated pattern was the circumstance of a single term, followed by return to Republican administration. When John DeNicola was elected in 1957, Mr. Hume gracefully took up the third selectman's duties which he had held before.
The town court was also affected by political changes, in the state, and a Democratic court functioned in 1949 and since 1955. A decided change is pending, in the so- called court reform enacted by the 1959 legislature, which provides for abolishment of town courts in Con- necticut and setting up district courts, to become effective in 1961. Following Mr. Rochford's death, John Mc- Nerney has been probate judge.
Town employees gained a retirement plan in 1949 and in that year the Griffenhagen firm made a study and recommendations concerning salaries, which were promptly increased in a special town meeting. Again in 195I a special town meeting gave employees a $200 cost-of-living bonus. Social Security and Civil Service came in 1957.
Religious groups have expanded facilities, and new denominations have instituted services. The Dunbar and Spring Glen churches brought to four the number of Congregational parishes. Recently established are two Lutheran groups, one of which has a new church building in Mount Carmel; two Baptist, an Orthodox Presbyterian, a Universalist, a Unitarian, and in Dunbar an Episcopal group called St. John's on the Hill.
St. John's Episcopal Church from New Haven has purchased land on which to locate in Hamden. The
464
The History of Hamden
Jewish Center has become Beth Sholom synagogue, and a large New Haven synagogue has acquired property on which it will build.
Among the five Catholic churches, two have new buildings-St. Stephen's and Our Lady of Mount Car- mel. The Blessed Sacrament Church which came in 1939, first held services in the Church Street School, and the Rev. Charles Kavanagh said Mass in the church building on Christmas Day. An active group has been formed called the Dunbar Catholic Women. The Rev. Matthew Brady left his pastorate at St. Rita's to become Bishop of Burlington and later of the diocese of Vermont; and the Rev. William Daly, who came to St. Rita's from Mount Carmel, was elevated to the title of monsignor.
In 195 1 the Missionary Zelatrices of the Sacred Heart built a convent on Cherry Hill called Mount Sacred Heart, which includes an academy for girls; and con- vents have been added to St. Rita's, the Blessed Sacra- ment and Mount Carmel.
Whether or not the area of the Quinnipiac River meadows becomes a land fill disposal place, the valley of the river is potentially of extreme importance to the towns of Hamden, New Haven, North Haven and Wallingford, and three men represent the town in the Quinnipiac Valley Development Corporation.
The location of the so-called Route 91 state highway has been a warm subject in the same towns, through which it is expected to run, and a number of routes have been suggested, with bitter opposition from one or an- other area in regard to some phases of each.
Dixwell Avenue was paved by the state from New Haven line to Connolly Parkway, and from Centerville corner to the North Haven line, with an agreement that Hamden will maintain those sections.
The Old Order Changeth 465
While the town hall has had many changes and small additions, panelled walls in the selectman's office and the court room, and innumerable shifts of department offices from one spot to another, the vault for the pro- bate court was not the last notable change. So much was increasingly said about overcrowded rooms and critical shortages of space, that a crisis seemed at hand, until First Selectman John DeNicola had the portion of the auditorium under the balcony and on the stage remodeled, so that three departments were established in offices there, thus making room in other places for needed expansion.
A part of the evidence that the town of Hamden is growing and its many needs of every description are expanding is the development in the last decade of over a dozen civic associations, each pressing for attention to demands or complaints affecting the local area involved.
Among new privately run institutions have been sev- eral pre-school nurseries and a number of convalescent homes, and there is a privately sponsored ambulance. An earnest group has since 1954 raised funds each year, under the guidance of the International Experiment in Living program, to send a Hamden young person to live for two months in another country in a typical family, taking a picture of our culture and bringing back the story of how life is lived elsewhere. Our ambassa- dors have gone to Germany, Austria, Italy, Yugoslavia, Poland and Mexico. The latter country, under the same guidance, sent eight high-school age girls here for a two-week visit in homes of local girls, as far back as 1947.
Garden clubs have made helpful projects of land- scaping around public buildings and in Eli Whitney Park. Many clubwomen have made regular supplies of cancer dressings to help with this health need.
*
466
The History of Hamden
So, in 23 years, Hamden's advance toward municipal maturity is marked-the grand list has increased by over III-million dollars, the population has doubled, there has been a tremendous growth in residential, in- dustrial and business building-there are 10,502 homes, 614 business and 81 manufacturing buildings and 16,568 automobiles listed in the town. The prophetic finger points toward acceptance of the auditors' repeated advice to change the fiscal year date to conform with related groups.
The town meeting form has given place to the RTM, which is likely to prove an intermediate step between the old and a modern form of government. The dis- pensing of justice on the local level is also advancing to a broader concept.
New public buildings, including libraries, many new schools, expansion of some and addition of new religious groups; a full time health director; Civil Service, Social Security and pensions for town employees, have come about. The volunteer firemen have given way to mod- ern fire fighting; and trolleys have yielded place to buses. Television has become a new kind of entertain- ment.
Problems? of course-zoning, traffic, sewer, refuse disposal-a natural part of growing. We are finding neighbor towns cooperative in regional matters; we are, while still nominally a villageous town, finding less inter-community hostility and a more unified sense of being proudly Hamden.
In a backward glance at Hamden in its corporate per- sonality-which has become what it is through the strongest of its citizen leaders-three men in this period could be selected as typical-Raymond Rochford, who served in the local courts and as town counsel and first selectman for most of his adult life; James Doherty-
The Old Order Changeth 467
on the school board, as a selectman, as prosecutor and town court judge, now elevated to a Common Pleas Court judgeship, and who, like Mr. Rochford, spent his life in active, strong leadership in a town that he served and loved; and John Thim-able moderator of town meetings, representative and Speaker of the House in the legislature, town court judge and lately on the Superior Court bench.
All these men have these characteristics in common -integrity, unselfish public service, courage, leadership, and a paramount interest in "the general welfare".
Hamden's personality remains throughout her exist- ence as still inventive, shrewd, cautious and thrifty. And the old Giant-our fundamental unchangeable, bears his age-old benign imperturbable aspect toward the puls- ing, growing changes of our life.
Bibliography and Appendix
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Andrews, Charles M., Atwater, Edward,
Barber, John W., and Punderson
Beach, Joseph, Beard, Charles and Mary, Blake, William P., Bradford, William, Bronson, Henry,
Clark, George T., Coley, James E., Dana, James D., Davis, Charles H., DeForest, John W.,
Dexter, F. B.,
Dickerman, George S., John H.,
Dwight, Timothy,
Fiske, John, Harlow, Alvin F., Hill, Edwin, Hughes, Sarah E., Levermore, Charles, Mills, Lewis S., Milford Tercentenary Committee, W.P.A. Mitchell, Mary H., Osborn, Norris,
BOOKS
Colonial Period of American History. History of the Colony of New Haven.
Historical Collections. History and Antiquities of New Haven. History of Cheshire.
The Rise of American Civilization.
History of Hamden.
History of Plymouth Plantation. Chapters on the Early Government of Connecticut.
History of New Haven County. History of Grace Church.
The Four Rocks.
History of Wallingford. 1870.
History of the Indians of Connecticut from the Earliest Known Period to 1850.
Miscellaneous Historical Papers of Fifty Years. 1918.
The Old Mount Carmel Parish.
Colonial Historie of the Parish of Mount Carmel. Travels in New England and New York. Statistical Account of New Haven. 1811. The Beginning of American Democracy. Towpaths of New England. History of New Haven County. History of East Haven.
The Republic of New Haven.
The Story of Connecticut.
History of Milford. History of New Haven County. History of New Haven County.
472
The History of Hamden
Peck, Henry,
History of the State House, New Haven, Connecticut.
Rockey, J. S.,
History of New Haven County.
Scudder, Horace E.,
History of the United States.
Seymour, George D.,
New Haven.
Connecticut Past and Present.
One Hundred Years of Child Care.
Diary.
Itineraries. Connecticut Fights.
Strickland, Daniel,
Thorpe, Sheldon, Townshend, Charles S.,
North Haven Annals.
The Quinnipiac Indians.
Invasion of New Haven.
Trumbull, Benjamin,
The Ecclesiastical History of Connecti- cut.
Warren, Isaac,
Wood, Frederick L.,
The Sisters. Turnpikes of New England.
GENEALOGIES
Alling
Dickerman
Atwater
Mansfield
Augur
Munson
Bassett
Potter
Bradley
Sackett
Brockett
Tuttle
Yale
PUBLIC RECORDS
Connecticut General Assembly Archives:
Cities and Boroughs Committee Report on Petition for Center- ville and New Haven Horse Car Railroad. Second Series, Military Affairs.
Travel, Highways, Bridges, Taverns.
Hamden District School Committee Records, 1800-90 (longhand). Town Meeting Records, 1786 -. Reports, 1887 -. Illustrated Gazetteer and Business Book of Connecticut, 1857-58 (A. D. Jones, New Haven). New Haven Board of Selectmen Record Book, 1771-79.
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.