USA > Connecticut > Fairfield County > Bridgeport > The story of Bridgeport > Part 9
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Orr tried in vain to persuade Mr. Connery that the story was the biggest "beat" they'd had in years. But the latter wouldn't listen.
"Don't you know", he shouted, "that it has been absolutely demonstrated that that kind of light is against the laws of nature?"
Evidently nature came around to man's way of thinking, judging by the progress of electricity from on object of ridicule to the substantial business it is today.
Electric illumination came to Bridgeport in the early 1880's.
Prior to 1885, there were two electric light com- panies in the city. One was the Thompson-Houston electric company whose plant was on Water Street, near the corner of South Avenue. The other was the Brush Electric Company located on Middle Street. After a brief existence as separate units, the two companies merged and were then operated under the name of The Bridgeport Electric Light Company. The Brush plant was abandoned and after the con- solidation The Bridgeport Electric Light Company moved its plant to John Street.
In September, 1885, F. A. Gilbert of Boston and James English of New Haven obtained an interest in The Bridgeport Electric Light Company. In that year there were 15 arc lamps on the street. Previous to the installation of the arc lamps, it had been neces- sary for the city to employ lamplighters who went about at dusk each night lighting the street lamps.
The first street lighting contract was drawn for the city at fifty cents a lamp, August 15, 1887. By 1890, there were 108 street lights in use.
Meters were not installed until 1894. Previous to this date, the lighting charge was based on the size of the lamps and the number of hours they were in
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service. Just a year before the above date, in 1893, the Congress Street plant had been completed.
The date of January 30, 1900 saw the consolida- tion of The Bridgeport Electric Light Company and The New Haven Electric Light Company under the name of The United Illuminating Company.
TWENTY-FOUR HOUR SERVICE
The year 1908 was a momentous one. For the first time it was possible to get electricity any time of the day or night. The plant now operated on a 24 hour schedule. Up to this time service had been furnished only from sunset to sunrise.
In 1910 the offices which had been at the plant on John Street were installed in the building which the company erected on the northwest corner of Broad and Cannon Streets. By November 11, 1923 the Steel Point plant at the foot of East Main Street was completed and put into service but the Congress Street plant was not immediately relinquished.
The territory covered today by the Bridgeport division includes Bridgeport, Stratford, Fairfield, Easton and Trumbull, the amount of electricity used, being tabulated by 53,218 meters, according to the 24th Annual Report of the Public Utilities Commis- sion, published in 1936. The city can now boast 147 miles of lighted streets, which figure includes 1,414 public arc lights and 1,351 incandescent lights.
The president of The United Illuminating Com- pany is James English.
It is a far cry from the days of the tallow candle to the modern electric lights which the present genera- tion takes as a matter of course. It is hard to realize that just a few short generations ago, the family went to bed as soon as possible after dark because work by artificial illumination was so difficult.
Not so long ago, a customer of The New York Edison Company received a bill for $2.10 covering his electric service for the preceding month. He was curious to know how much the same amount and de- gree of illumination would have cost him in the days of tallow candles. The question was referred for careful analysis to the research department of The Edison Electrical Institute. The answer was $185.00.
"WATER, WATER, EVERYWHERE!"
Back in the good old days when family washings were done only once in three weeks and the old tin bathtub with its billowing suds was carefully passed
around the family Saturday night, water was spar- ingly used.
The first effort to supply Bridgeport people with water was made in 1818 by the Rev. Elijah Water- man, pastor of the Congregational church, who lived on Golden Hill. On the west side of his property were located several springs of excellent water. Other wells of good water in the village were owned by Robert Linus and Captain Stephen Burroughs.
It happened at this time that vessels coming into the harbor often, needed water and consequently expected to obtain it here. Linus and Burroughs agreed to supply the ships with water for a certain price per cask. This seemed to the pastor an unfair method, so he cleaned out his springs and deepened them, then laid wooden pipes roughly constructed, through Main and Water Streets down to the shore edge where a "Publik Water" trough was erected for the benefit of the visiting sailormen.
The enterprise was continued at first by Lewis C. Segee who succeeded Mr. Waterman about 1823, and afterwards, in May 1833, by Jesse Sterling, Stephen Hawley, Seth B. Jones, Ziba Northrop, Nicholas Northrop, Edwin Porter and George Kippen as a chartered company. The group called itself The Bridgeport Golden Hill Aqueduct Com- pany and was capitalized at $10,000. Water was still being obtained from the springs.
By 1853 the need for a more extensive supply of water, particularly for fire purposes was felt, and the Common Council granted to Nathaniel Greene, agent for the Pequonnock Mills in North Bridgeport, and to his assigns, the exclusive privilege of laying water pipes in the public streets on the condition they should furnish the city and the inhabitants a full supply of pure water for domestic, mechanical and all ordinary uses, both public and private.
Mr. Greene and others formed The Bridgeport Water Company which was incorporated with a capital of $160,000 in 1853, and in 1854, a distribut- ing reservoir was made in North Bridgeport and pipes laid through the principal streets of the city, the source of supply being the water of the Pequonnock River which was pumped into the reservoir.
The enterprise was not successful and certainly not remunerative to the stockholders, and bonds amounting to $90,000 having been issued, the com- pany eventually fell into the hands of the bond-
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holders by foreclosure and in June, 1857 a charter was granted to a new corporation composed of the bondholders.
BRIDGEPORT HYDRAULIC COMPANY
By the charter, William S. Knowlton, Nathaniel Greene, J. H. Washburn, Joseph Richardson and others were incorporated under the name Bridgeport Hydraulic Company.
During the next 15 years an indifferent type of water service was offered Bridgeport, so indifferent that in 1873 we find the General Assembly, because of the many complaints from the Bridgeporters, authorizing the city to buy the works of the Bridge- port Hydraulic Company or to build new works if the purchase could not be made upon terms satis- factory to the city.
But the city never purchased the works and even- tually Joseph Richardson the first president and
leading stockholder, sold his stock to Amos Treat and a new policy was inaugurated. The source of supply was enlarged, old and worn out pipes were replaced with pipes of good quality and mains were laid in locations not before reached.
Today finds the Bridgeport Hydraulic Company with a perfected water system which services a terri- tory populated by 204,956 people. (1935-36) There are six reservoirs, Trap Falls in Huntington, Hemlocks in Fairfield and Easton, Easton Lake in Easton, and Reservoirs No. 1, No. 2 and No. 3 in Shelton, the combined storage capacity of which is 12,460,000,000 gallons, according to the 24th annual report of the Public Utilities Commission, published in 1936. Some 484 miles of pipe carry this water to consumers in the Bridgeport district.
Samuel P. Senior is president of the Bridgeport Hydraulic Company and chairman of its board of directors.
"IT'S IN THE NEWS!"
CHAPTER TWELVE
R UNAWAY horses, eight inch eggs, hot air cooling stoves, oyster stews, dooryard flower thieves and cows on the train tracks-these were the main con- cerns of the Bridgeporters in the early 1850's judging from the "Republican Farmer" the city's first news- paper to become a daily, January 1, 1850.
How styles change! No headlines, no last minute action photos, no funny sheets. The entire front page was devoted to advertisements. One store offered "ladies' paper collars and cuffs;" another, "the largest bread in the world;" and a third, pork, guaranteed "with no worms in it."
A shoe salesman advertised "double-soled boots" and arctic overshoes "a new article never before got- ten up," while a dress house sought to sell "hoop skirts of all sizes" and a hardware establishment urged all good housewives to throw out their present stoves and try the "Improved American-Hot Air Cooling" variety.
Those who wanted to read items of local interest, looked for the same in among the railroad schedules,
auction sales and patent medicine advertisements.
Here we find that "attendance at the Bridgeport Trotting Park was good"; that "an exhibit of sea- shells" was to be held at Washington hall; and that a Bridgeport hen (non-union) laid an egg "eight inches one way and seven the other."
The biggest crime news of the year was served to the curious public under the heading of "Arrests" and told how the police locked up a man and a woman after an argument. The man submitted quietly enough, but when the officer attempted to place "the frail one" in durance vile, she "like a true lover of liberty drew a revolver and showed fight, but she was soon brought to terms!"
Revolvers must have been as common as cats and dogs in the average household in those days, judging by the careless references to them. Thus the editor, one spring evening, after roundly denouncing robbers of dooryard flowers, advised the townspeople to stop the thieving by putting "a minie bullet through the hand that does the mischief!"
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If Bridgeport had its share of crime in those days, it also had its share of accidents, even though the automobile had not yet appeared on the scene.
"A horse attached to Adams and Company's Express wagon, got into a run down in Boneville," the editor informed the reading public. The horse, it seems, dashed wildly down Main Street, bumping into wagons and carts and doing sundry damage before it was caught. The accident was summed up in the following manner :
"Cause of run-trace got unhitched.
"Lesson: see that your traces are well secured.
"In other words: be sure you are right and then go ahead."
Children on the highways were a constant source of trouble to drivers of the age and mothers were con- tinually cautioned to keep them at home. Few list- ened and accidents were common. A child narrowly escaped death while mak- ing mud pies in the middle of the road, corner of State and Water Streets, but, as the story stated, "the acci- dent was averted when the young gent driving, reigned in his Arabian."
It just seemed as though the farmers would never get used to the new railroad and trains were in con- stant danger of being knocked over by stray cows. One early morning an express train killed a cow. The "Republican Farmer" duly chronicled the fact, adding "it was fortunate that the train was not thrown from the track."
So much for the "high life" of the 1850's.
RUNAWAY SLAVES
In the half century which had elapsed since the founding of the first newspaper in the community, newspaper makeup had changed little.
The "American Telegraphe and Fairfield County Gazette," established by Lazarus Beach in our village in 1795, as mentioned earlier in this history, also devoted the major part of its publication to advertise- ments and foreign news. Everything was recorded except what was going on in the home town!
The advertisements did give some indication of the life of the people, however. In the "advs": saddles
and carriages, second hand muskets and "elegant eight days clocks", jostled with barrels of flour and molasses, "mixt and drab broadcloth", "Callicoes and humhums," Scotch snuff and Anguilla salt.
Slaves and apprentices figured largely in the ad- vertisements. Thus, one "subscriber" offered:
"For Sale, a Healthy Negro Girl, 14 years of age, Enquire of Printer."
Other subscribers confined their activities to get- ting back slaves they'd already bought and paid for, or apprentices who'd gone to seek greener fields. Anywhere from one cent to six cents was offered for the return of the runaways.
Descriptions were invariably given, but said descriptions would hardly pass the scrupulous exact- ness of a modern detective agency. Witness the following :
"Lost, by Asa Benjamin. . . . Ran away from subscriber on the night of the 6th instant . a boy by the name of John Jones . . . . an indented apprentice. Said boy is very stout, pale face, light hair and light eyes, with a pair of large feet."
"Stop the Thief! A Negro man of small size named Henry Jackson, brought up in New York. May be known by a scar across his left eyebrow; very meanly dressed, short blue jacket and pantaloons, no pack."
"Lost! Ran away from the subscribers on the third instant, a Negro woman named Candace, about 20 years of age. She is slim built, yellowish complexion, middle size, slim face. Had on when she went away a black beaver hat and a light chintz shawl."
Not for long did the "American Telegraphe and Fairfield County Gazette" have the Bridgeport news- paper field to itself. In 1805 the "Bridgeport Herald" arrived. This was a weekly and lasted only a very short time, and had nothing to do with the present Bridgeport Sunday Herald. Then came the "Bridge- port Advertiser" in 1806, lasting several years; the "Republican Farmer" in 1810; the "Connecticut Courier" in 1810 and the "Connecticut Patriot" in 1826.
There followed in more or less rapid succession : The "Spirit of The Times," 1831; the "Bridgeport Republican", 1830; later known as the "Republican Standard", then as "Bridgeport Standard", 1839, later as the "Standard", 1854, and still later as the "Standard American", 1917; the "Bridgeport
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Chronicle", 1848; the "Daily Farmer", 1850- formerly the "Republican Farmer"; the "Bridgeport Leader", 1854, later the "Independent Leader"; the "Budget", the "Sun", the "Morning News", 1874; the "Morning Union", 1892.
MODERN NEWSPAPERS
Bridgeport today boasts the following newspapers: The "Bridgeport Post", (daily, evenings) was founded in 1883 and known as the "Evening Post." In 1891 the "Bridgeport Telegram" (daily, morn- ings) made its appearance. This paper later absorbed the "Morning Union", which in turn had killed the "Morning News". The Post Publishing Company was incorporated August 29, 1891 and thenceforth this company published both the "Post" and the "Telegram". In 1911 the "Bridgeport Sun- day Post" came into being. The Post Publishing Company is housed today at 404 State Street and Edward Flicker is publisher.
The "Bridgeport Sunday Herald" (weekly, state paper,) was established in 1890 by Fred R. Swift. For more than 20 years Richard Howell was editor and publisher. In 1929, the paper was sold and the Bridgeport Herald Corporation took over the man- agement, moving the plant from Middle Street to 299 Lafayette Street. Leigh Danenberg is publisher.
"La Sentinella" (weekly) Italian newspaper was established in 1913 by Pasquale Altieri. It is housed at 641 East Washington Avenue and Frank Altieri is publisher today.
A year later, 1914, "The Bridgeport", Hungarian weekly commenced publication. Cornelius Csongradi, the present publisher, was its founder. The paper is at 628 Bostwick Avenue.
"Bridgeport Life", weekly, was established in 1915 and in 1919 the Bridgeport Life Publishing Com- pany was incorporated. Robert Sperry, founder, is also publisher. The publishing house is at 743 Hancock Avenue.
The most recent of the Bridgeport newspapers, the "Bridgeport Times-Star" is a consolidation of the former "Times" and the former "Star". The "Bridgeport Times" started in 1918 was formerly the "Bridgeport Farmer". The "Bridgeport Star" was commenced in 1919. Consolidation of the "Times" and the "Star" took place November 1, 1926, at which time the "Times-Star Company" was
incorporated. Henry D. Bradley is publisher. The publishing house is at 928 Lafayette Street.
NEW BANKS
Between the years of 1850 to 1860 three banking institutions were chartered in the city: the Pequon- nock Bank in 1851; the Bridgeport City Bank in 1854 and the City Savings Bank in 1859.
The first four earliest banks were the Bridgeport Bank, the Connecticut Bank, the Pequonnock Bank and the Bridgeport Savings Bank. The first three were merged, in the latter days of their careers, with the First National Bank. The fourth was merged with the People's Savings Bank.
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FIRST BANKING INSTITUTION
The Bridgeport Bank, the first in the community, was chartered in 1806. The above building was erected in 1810 at the corner of Main and Bank Streets.
The Bridgeport Bank was chartered in 1806 with a capital stock of $200,000. May 21, 1807 the bank opened for business in a house on the west side of Water Street near State. In 1810 a building was erected at the corner of Main and Bank Streets. This was remodeled in 1857. In 1865 the institution became a national bank and in 1885, the bank went into the United Bank building with the City Savings Bank at the northeast corner of Main and Bank Streets. In 1909 the institution was merged with the First National Bank.
The Connecticut Bank was incorporated in May, 1831. Within three months after incorporation, as
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required by statute, a branch of the bank was estab- lished at Mill River, now Southport, known as the Southport National Bank. Captain Ezekiel Hubbell was first president of the Connecticut Bank, elected in 1835. The following were the locations: first on Wall Street ;- January, 1834, at Wall and Main Streets; 1885-86 building torn down and another erected in its place. February 1, 1921, the Connec- ticut Bank was merged with the First National Bank.
The Bridgeport Savings Bank was chartered in May, 1842 and began business in Sherwood Sterling's store on Water Street. Sherwood Sterling was the first president. In 1843 the bank was moved to a store near the northeast corner of Wall and Water Streets. The yearly rental was $12. In 1845 the bank was removed to 21 Wall Street and in 1850 to the southeast corner of Main and State Streets. A new brick building was erected at a cost of $2,100. In 1878 the brick building was torn down and an- other building erected in its place. In 1916 the building now occupied by the People's Savings Bank was begun and finished in 1918. The Bridgeport Savings Bank was merged with the People's Savings Bank in 1933.
The Pequonnock Bank was organized in May, 1851, and P. T. Barnum was the first president. Be- fore 1865 the Pequonnock Bank was reorganized into a national bank under the title of the Pequonnock National Bank of Bridgeport. . The Pequonnock National Bank had owned and occupied a building at the southeast corner of Main and State Streets since the autumn of 1853. During the construction of another building the institution occupied one of the stores in Bailey's Block on State Street.
In 1913 the Pequonnock National Bank was merged with the First National Bank whose building was located where the Mechanics and Farmers Bank now stands. The Pequonnock moved in with the First National at the time, remaining there until the present structure of the First National Bank and Trust Company was completed, corner of State and Main Streets.
The following banks are in operation in Bridge- port today: The First National Bank and Trust Company, The Bridgeport-City Trust Company, The City Savings Bank, The Mechanics and Farmers Savings Bank, The West Side Bank, The North End Bank and Trust Company, The Black Rock Bank and Trust Company and The Bridgeport-People's Savings Bank, statistics on all of which will be found in the appendix of this publication.
NEW CHURCHES
The years between 1850 and 1860 saw the estab- lishment of several new churches as well as three new banks in Bridgeport. There was the Christ Episcopal Church, 1850; the First Presbyterian, 1853; Wash- ington Park Methodist Episcopal, 1853; St. Mary's Roman Catholic Church, 1853-54; Church of the Nativity Protestant Episcopal, 1858; St. Paul's Epis- copal Church, 1858; Congregation B'Nai Israel, 1859; German Reformed Church, 1860.
In the infant days of Bridgeport's development, the meeting house and church was the important building in the community. Here psalms were read, prayers were said, town meetings held, cases tried and all the problems closest to the heart of the community were solved.
Bridgeport's first meeting house was Congrega- tional, built in 1693 as mentioned earlier in this history. The first Episcopal church was erected in 1748, and the first Baptist in 1751.
Methodism came to Bridgeport in 1789; first Catholic mass was said here in 1830 and the first Catholic church was dedicated in 1843; the first Universalist church was organized in Bridgeport in 1845; first Presbyterian church constituted in 1853; first Jewish congregation organized in 1859; first Lutheran church organized in 1887.
There are in Bridgeport today, more than one hundred churches, synagogues and missions, details of which will be found in the appendix of this publication.
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ยท JESS. BENTON
PUBL
"HONEST ABE" BEFORE AND AFTER
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
"P EOPLE want to know where this vulgar, poverty stricken lawyer from Illinois gets all the money to allow his wife such princely extrava- gance", said the "Republican Farmer" of Bridgeport under date of October 7, 1864.
Sounds like a first class scandal, doesn't it? And who was being discussed? None other than President Abraham Lincoln, then up for re-election. The "Farmer" although labeled Republican, was support- ing the Democratic candidate for president and knowing no other way to defeat Lincoln, resorted to "mud slinging".
"Not long since the papers duly chronicled the fact that Mrs. Lincoln bought a shawl for $5000", said the "Farmer". "Then, that she purchased a set of earrings and pin for $3000. Other various pur-
chases have been announced within the year, amount- ing to over $7000.
"Here are $15,000 spent by our 'rosy empress' in one year. But this is not all.
"She is on the wing about two-thirds of her time- travelling in special trains of cars, stopping at the most expensive hotels, figuring on a scale of Babylon- ian magnificence, all of which cannot be less than $5000 more for the year.
"So the whole foots up $23,000. That is within $2000 of all Lincoln's salary. 'Disloyal' people want to know where this vulgar poverty stricken lawyer from Illinois gets all the money to allow his wife such princely extravagances.
"Think of the hundreds of thousands of widows and orphans -- think of the acres of poor soldiers
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whose bones lie bleaching upon a hundred battle- fields or whose maimed forms are suffering in hos- pitals and poorhouses, all the work of this man-and then over against all this woe, set his wife, frollicking and rolling in a merry luxury that rivals the splendor of an eastern harem."
So much for poor Lincoln's wife. Of the great man himself, the "Farmer" said:
"When Lincoln started for Washington, after his election, he was not worth money enough of his own to pay the expenses of his journey to the capital. . . . What mine of wealth has he found at Washing- ton?
"Give us a few more months (to end the Civil war) a few hundred thousand more men, and a few hundred millions more of money and we will finish up the war", say Lincoln and his shoddy crew.
"Do not be deceived by these false and plausible stories-the party in power cannot, neither does it intend to bring the war to a conclusion."
But the party in power, personified by Abraham Lincoln, did bring the war to an end and those who had been most cruel in their bitter denunciation of the man, were among the first to furiously ring the bells of peace and proudly proclaim "Our Abe".
There were in Bridgeport, during the Civil War, some who held no sympathy for the War of The Rebellion, even as there were those during the Revo- lutionary war who would take no part against the king, and those during the War of 1812 who roundly denounced the conflict.
It is curious how a war victory or an assassination will sway public opinion. Those who spent the years of the Civil War, criticizing everything the govern- ment did, had a different story to tell when the war ended in victory for the north and when the presi- dent was shot, and years later we find their descend- ants revering the memory of Lincoln.
Today, we find the "Bridgeport Times-Star" grandson of the "Republican Farmer" saying, in February, 1936:
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