USA > Connecticut > New Haven County > Waterbury > The town and city of Waterbury, Connecticut, from the aboriginal period to the year eighteen hundred and ninety-five. Volume II > Part 8
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B. P. Chatfield, raising the pole, 20.00
A. B. Simons, joiner and iron work, rope, etc., 39.98
Mr. Woods, painting, . 2.50
Total,
$109.51
Amount of subscriptions,
36.41
Balance to be raised,
.
$73.10
+ See " History of the Soldiers' Monument," Waterbury, 1886, pp. 3-6.
5
THE GREEN IN 1890. (SECOND BAND-STAND, AT THE CENTRE.
REPLACED BY A THIRD IN 1891.)
66
HISTORY OF WATERBURY.
Green) was delayed for fourteen years, and in the meantime an other liberty pole was procured and erected near the band stand. It stood until 1870. The old band stand was superseded by a much more elaborate one, which appears in the illustration on page 65, and that by another of entirely different style in 1892.
It will be seen by reference to the map in Volume I, page 161, that there were nearly as many dwellings on either side of West Main street in 1700 as there are now, but they looked out upon a very different view. Still, this patch of land in all its transitions from rocky swamp to shaded, shaven lawn has always been the heart and "centre" of the town, and so continues to be.
CHAPTER V.
OLD VILLAGE HIGHWAYS-ORIGINAL AREA OF THE VILLAGE-ORIGINAL STREETS-GRADUAL ENLARGEMENT-SOME CHANGES SPECIFIED- THE CITY PERIOD-RATE OF GROWTH- - SIDEWALKS
IN 1859 -OTHER IMPROVEMENTS-CITY PARKS-THE BROOKLYN DISTRICT -CITY BRIDGES.
N the town records covering the period subsequent to the Revo- lutionary war, there are references occasionally to the village highways, of such a kind as to indicate that they were streets rather than roads; but at the same time, these references seem to show that the streets were not treated with the respect which streets might properly claim. Pages are filled with petitions for permis- sion to encroach upon them, and with complaints of encroachments already made. There were those who seem to have thought that it was proper to place a building on the highway if there was room for it there, and there were others who sympathized with them so far as to vote in favor of their petition. The incorporation of the borough gave opportunity for the expression of more rigid views on this subject, and at one of its earliest meetings, as we have seen, the borough "equipped itself for its work by the appointment of street inspectors." The relation of the streets to the "common," in con- nection with the going at large of cattle and swine, was one of the vexatious questions which the borough had to labor over through- out its history. But as for any attempt to improve the highways, or to transform country roads into shapely streets, there is very little trace of it in the records. In our summing up of borough improvements in a previous chapter (see page 20), we enumerated only two or three instances,-the levying of a tax of one cent on the dollar for the benefit of the streets in 1838, which prepared the way for an outlay of $80; an earlier outlay of $15 in 1832, and an ordinance passed in 1846 requiring that certain sidewalks should "remain public sidewalks for public convenience," and should be kept in repair by the owners of the lands adjoining them.
In every growing town the laying out of highways is carried forward without much reference to organized authority; it is a matter which, after a fashion, takes care of itself. We see the process going on in Waterbury in the present century as in the past, only more steadily and on a much larger scale. In Bronson's
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HISTORY OF WATERBURY.
History and in our first volume * we have a careful record of the original lay-out of streets and home lots, by the help of which we can picture to ourselves the little village of Mattatuck in its primi- tive condition. The streets of the village were six in number, three running east and west and measuring about half a mile in length, and three shorter ones running nearly north and south. The vil- lage was practically bounded by Grove street on the north, Grand street on the south, Cherry and Mill streets on the east, and Willow street on the west, and within that area lay the street now known as East and West Main streets, the northern part of Bank street and the southern part of North Main and Cooke streets. These were of course capable of extension, and there was room within the village area for the laying out of additional streets; but while there was naturally a growth along the lines indicated, the opening of new streets either within the original territory or beyond it can hardly be said to have begun until the present century. With the help of data collected by Bronson and others, we can easily trace the few additions to the original list of streets and the few changes made, down to the borough period and beyond it, and these may be of interest not BUILDERS HARDWARE alone to the antiquary but to the " general read- HARNE TA K MANUFACTURER W.W.BURRITT & Co. er."
It would appear that North Main street above the foot of Cooke was not in the original lay- out, and that Cooke street itself ran further to the west than it now does. Another old street that did not exist in the A BIT OF OLD SOUTH MAIN STREET.+ earliest period is that part of Mill which runs along Mad river from the Baldwin street bridge to the factory of the American Mills company. Cole street, also, although ancient, was apparently not an original street. That
* Vol. I, pp. 161 et seq .; Bronson, pp. 17-23.
+ From a daguerreotype in the possession of H. W. Hayden.
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STREETS, SIDEWALKS AND BRIDGES.
part of Cherry street which runs directly north and south was not really opened until 1725, and its upper end, running east and west, not until 1746. One of the most important of the earlier changes (yet occurring in the present century) was the opening of South Main street. From an early date there was "a passage " called the Pine Hill road running from the south end of what is now Bank street, that is, from where Meadow street crosses it, in a south-east- erly direction to the Mad river crossing, near the present Mad river bridge, and so on southerly to Naugatuck. But the street which is now our chief thoroughfare going southward did not come into existence until some time after 1800, when it was laid out as a county road. In 1848 the Waterbury American, speaking of this street when it was still known by its earlier name, said: "We should not overlook the immense transformation for the better of that portion of the turnpike leading from the post office to the bridge below." (The post office was then in the South Main street end of the building which stood where Bohl's block now is, and the bridge was that across Great brook-then an open stream-a little north of Grand street.) The writer continues :
The descent is now gradual, and when the sidewalks are properly worked that street will present a really handsome appearance. We are aware that in the way of grading and filling up sunken places wonders have already been accomplished, yet much remains to be done, which must of course be the work of time .*
In 1850, Bank street was a lane, entered by a gate near Grand. This was one of two gates that opened from the village through the "common fence" into the " common field," and was known as the south gate. It was not removed until about 1837, after which the lane stood open as far south as to where the railroad now crosses it. In 1840 the gate stood at this latter point, and a path led thence across the meadows and past the sand-hill which filled the space where the buildings of the Plume & Atwood Manufacturing com- pany now stand, to a ford just beyond the New England railroad bridge. A foot-bridge, built by David Hoadley, crossed the river about midway between the present Naugatuck railroad and Bank street bridges, and remained until after 1840. "I recollect," wrote E. L. Bronson forty-five years later, "passing over this bridge at that date with fear and trembling, as it showed evident signs of 'structural weakness.'" The opening of Church street took place early in the century. It was laid out on May 5, 1806, being two rods
* American, October 20, 1848. At this time there was a bridge across Great brook on South Main street and another on Grand, and the water covered a considerable part of the intervening space, being set back by a dam, with head-gates, on the south line of Grand street, from which point the water was taken by a canal to a factory near Meadow street.
70
HISTORY OF WATERBURY.
wide and extending southward forty rods. Leavenworth street was not opened until twenty-five years later, when Mark Leaven- worth laid it out and his son-in-law Green Kendrick gave it its name. Prospect street was opened by C. B. Merriman at a still later date. The American, in the issue already quoted, October 20, 1848, refers to the recent opening of Scovill street, and incidentally mentions the origin of its name :
The street that turns from the turnpike east, below the Baptist church,-late a good field, but built up on the south side during the last three months (christened by Monsieur Braunfels Scovill street, and justly, too)-has transformed the un- sightly section of the village into abodes of taste and convenience .* At some future day, however, we hope to see that hill lowered [the hill on which the High School now stands], the hollow on the east of it raised [along the line of present Elm street], and other improvements of which it is susceptible.
Five years after this, Waterbury emerged from the borough stage of existence and became a city, and thereafter improvements were accomplished more rapidly. The city charter, adopted in June, 1853, conferred upon the Common Council power "to lay out new highways, streets, public walks and public avenues," and to alter, extend or enlarge them, and the Council in August of the same year established the office of street commissioner, endowing him with the functions of an inspector, and enacted an elaborate by-law in relation to the grading of streets and the obstructing of streets and sidewalks. In the charter of 1871 the city was declared to be a "highway district," and the Common Council was clothed with exclusive control over all streets and parts of streets, and with power to construct, repair and alter them, and a board of road com- missioners was established, consisting of the mayor, one alderman, one councilman, and two other persons, who should have the gen- eral superintendence of all the streets, sidewalks, crosswalks and bridges of the city, and who should employ a street inspector and a street surveyor. The importance of this department in the minds of those who framed the new charter is shown by the fact that fully nine of its thirty-two pages are devoted to it, while in the body of ordinances adopted from time to time by the Common Council the subject of streets and sidewalks occupies a much larger space than any other.+
Under so elaborate a management the condition of Waterbury streets should have been conspicuously good, and the opening up
* Messrs. J. M. L. and W. H. Scovill opened this street through their own land. They bought the old Mansion House, which stood where the store of E. T. Turner & Co. now is, divided it into three double houses and moved them to the south side of this street. They added a fourth, brought from somewhere else. This is why it was called Scovill street .- F. J. K.
+ See "Charter and Ordinances," 1874, pp. 18-28, 168-179.
7I
STREETS, SIDEWALKS AND BRIDGES.
of new territory should have gone forward rapidly. The increase in the number of streets was certainly remarkable. In 1857, a com- mittee of the Common Council which had been appointed to select street names, reported in addition to the sixteen old streets already mentioned twenty others, and in addition to these thirty-six estab- lished streets, nineteen "streets or passways thrown open or built upon, but not yet laid out as public streets," making in all fifty-five streets, places and alleys .* The fact that between 1850 and 1860 the population of Waterbury doubled explains the increase in the number of streets. But it has since then been much more rapid, for in 1879 the number of streets was 132; in 1889 it was 236, and according to the City Directory for 1894 it is 262.
As regards the condition of the streets throughout the history of the city, and the improvements made from time to time, there is not much to be said. Mr. Charles U. C. Burton, describing the city in 1857, paints it in such colors as these:
Who would here imagine himself in the central portion of a large manufactur- ing place ? Stately churches and elegant private mansions surround the square. The residences present, for the most part, extensive grounds tastefully laid out, with fountains sparkling here and there. . The manufacturing establish- ments are in the outskirts of the city; consequently this portion of Waterbury, with its beautiful Centre square and its quiet shaded streets lined with handsome resi- dences, presents an appearance quite unique for a manufacturing town.t
Elsewhere, speaking of the "business portion of the city," he tells us how "gas lights flash out from the tastefully dressed windows of handsome stores." But on the same page he says: "Do not look at the sidewalks; they will not bear inspec- tion;" and we need not won- der at the warning, for at that date there were no side- BENEDIC HENRY MERRIMAN & CO. walks worthy of the name. The Waterbury Almanac for 1859 reported: "Our streets are being graded and improved, sidewalks widened and paved;" and a EXCHANGE PLACE IN 1857. # year later: "New streets opened; sidewalks graded and flagged." But this was nearly thirty years after the vote of the borough "to
* See the report as quoted in Chapter III, p. 46.
+ The National Magazine, September, 1857, P. 195.
# From a drawing by C. U. C. Burton; an illustration in the National Magazine, September, 1857.
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HISTORY OF WATERBURY.
appropriate five dollars to repair the sidewalk from the house of Mrs. Alathea Scovill eastward to the bridge near Joseph Fair- clough's blacksmith shop," and in the meantime Waterbury side walks had remained for the most part in statu quo. To be sure, a sidewalk had been built by Capt. Anson Sperry and his son Charles on West Main street in front of the Holmes lot (now the residence of the Messrs. Barlow); in 1851 a walk had been laid in front of the post office on South Main (now Bohl's block); several citizens had laid flag or brick pavements before their dwellings, and a plank walk had been laid in front of one of the houses on Prospect street; and in 1857, we are told, "many flag walks were laid, those at the crossings about Exchange place being a great improvement to the city." Yet so late as 1859 the sidewalks as a rule were still unpaved, the exceptions being those just referred to and those in front of the following public places: Citizens' Bank, Hotchkiss block, the old Franklin House (now Lake & Strobel's), Apothecaries' Hall, the Benedict & Merriman store, the Scovill House, and the Centre square front of the store on the corner of Leavenworth street. In 1860 the Common Council authorized the laying of a plank sidewalk on Bank street from Grand to the railroad station, and there were improvements in other parts of the city. But nothing worthy of note was accomplished until 1866. Under the administration of Mayor Rockwell, in addition to improvements mentioned elsewhere (page 40), the hill streets leading up from the centre were graded, the hollow at the junction of South Main and Grand streets was filled up, the old, crazy, narrow wooden bridges were replaced by arched stone bridges, and sidewalks were paved for the first time with flag-stones, or pavements were relaid. Leavenworth street was not only flagged, that year, from West Main to Grand street, but iron fences were erected in front of all the residences on the west side. An iron fence had been erected two years before in front of the residence of C. B. Merriman, adjoining the First church. The first concrete sidewalks were laid in 1869.
The tardiness of the community in making such improvements as these reveals a lack of enterprise hardly paralleled in other depart- ments. From the time of the incorporation of the city the Common Council had power to compel the owners of lands and buildings " to level, raise or form sidewalks and gutters on their several fronts, and to flag or pave the same," but public opinion seems not to have demanded any rapid advance out of the old village condition. We have seen, for example, that a by-law of 1853 laid down stringent regulations in regard to obstructions and nuisances, and in 1868 this by-law was amended with reference to keeping the sidewalks
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STREETS, SIDEWALKS AND BRIDGES.
free from snow and ice. At a later date the ordinances of the Com- mon Council relative to this subject were made still more explicit, but without satisfactory results. Efforts to enforce the law have been spasmodic, and when the individual resident or owner has failed in his duty, the city has allowed the ice and snow to remain where it fell, and has in this way incurred suits for heavy damages.
Thirty years after the incorporation of the city, the question of paving the streets began to be agitated, and two years and a half
N.RUSSELL
ENTIST
A GREAT
EDUCTIONTI
MEDLAMINE
FOGCON PRICES
BANK STREET IN MARCH, 1888. (AFTER THE SO-CALLED BLIZZARD.)
later (May, 1886), the first piece of pavement was laid, extending from Grand street through Bank to its junction with South Main street. At the end of 1890 the length of the streets paved with granite blocks was somewhat over a mile, and in 1893 a beginning was made in the use of broken stone. In 1891 another improve- ment, simple but important, was introduced; the streets were re-numbered according to a new system proposed by the city engi- neer. They were divided into three classes, business streets, those
74
HISTORY OF WATERBURY.
likely to become such to a greater or less extent, and residence streets. To the first class numbers were assigned at the rate of one for every ten feet; to the second class one for every fifteen feet, and to the third one for every twenty feet. The numbering was accomplished in the spring, the canvassers for the City Directory came soon after; the new numbers were thus fixed and placed on record, and the old ones disappeared. The naming of the streets, which must receive much more attention than this, is reserved for consideration further on. Still another improvement remains to be mentioned-the introduction of sprinkling carts. On April 12, 1877, the first public suggestion in reference to sprinkling the streets appeared in one of the newspapers, and on May 28 " Protector No. 1," belonging to C. N. Hall, began its daily journeys. This service passed afterward into the hands of R. N. Blakeslee .*
With the exception of the Green, there has been until recently no open area in Waterbury which could be regarded as a park, unless it be the small triangle at the intersection of Cole and Frank- lin streets, known as Union square. As an open space between two divergent roads this has been in existence from the earliest period, but like the Green it was formerly rocky and uneven, and was regarded as a piece of useless common. At one time the East Centre school-house stood upon it, but this was moved westward. to the rear of what is now Franklin street more than fifty years ago. During the administration of Mayor Baldwin, measures were taken to create a park out of the old Grand street cemetery. Some years before, an act had been passed by the legislature providing that this ground might be withdrawn from use as a burying ground and made over to the city for a park, and in 1891 the transformation was accomplished. Not only had no burials been made there in twenty-five years, but the place had been neglected by the town and polluted by vagrants. Yet when the time came for sinking all the gravestones out of sight, thus removing every vestige of former uses and the record of honored names, there were some who protested against the proceeding as a piece of vandalism which ought not to be tolerated. This feeling, however, was met by that which found expression in the Mayor's message of January, 1891. "It must be a source of consolation," he said, "to those having friends buried there to know that at last steps are being taken to redeem this sacred spot, and make it a permanent blessing to the living, rather than a disgrace to the memory of the dead." No
* James M. Colley was street inspector in Waterbury during a period of more than twenty years. He was born at Bridgewater, N. H., in 1827, and came to Waterbury in 1851. He married, in 1856, Cornelia Minor of Woodbury, by whom he had one child, Charles A. Colley. He died August 23, 1890.
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STREETS, SIDEWALKS AND BRIDGES.
compromise in the matter was seriously considered, and the ceme- tery gave place to a park. But a large part of it was taken the following year, as the site for the new building of the Bronson Library. During the same administration a committee of the Common Council was appointed to consider the question of laying out parks in other parts of the city. Mayor Baldwin strongly favored the purchase of that part of the A. B. Wilson estate lying between the Hospital grounds and Riverside cemetery, as well as the land opposite it on the east side of the river, and the connecting of the two by a bridge. But no definite action was taken, and the progress thus far made toward a park system for the city has been made by private individuals. The names Valley View park, River- side park, Highland and Cottage and Norwood parks, however, indicate not so much the establishment of parks within or without the city limits as the opening up of new districts for residences of the better quality.
The division of the city into districts-natural districts as dis- tinguished from municipal wards-is a process which perhaps calls for some remark. The tendency toward such a division is strongly favored by the topographical features of the city, and accordingly we have the Brooklyn district, the Simonsville district, the Abriga- dor and Dublin street districts, the Round Hill and Burnt Hill dis- tricts, the Valley View, the Bunker Hill and the Westside districts. Of these, the Abrigador and the Brooklyn districts are the most distinctly marked and the most important. More than forty years ago, the former began to be a place of residence for the working class who had come from beyond the sea, and it has thus far pre- served the characteristics thus imparted to it. The Brooklyn dis- trict, which in 1850 consisted of but "two or three houses and a handful of residents," holds a population numbering over five thousand, and contains from 850 to 900 buildings, some of which are among the finest in the city. Sand hills have been levelled, woods cut down, streets laid out, and the section has become almost a city by itself, with its own schools, churches, hotels, fire engines and physicians. Almost the only landmark of the past is the Ansel Porter house (for many years the residence of John Clark, step- father of A. C. Porter) on the corner of Bank and South Leonard streets.
THE CITY BRIDGES.
An amendment to the first charter, made by the General Assem- bly, in June, 1861, provided that the bridges across the Naugatuck river, the Mad river and Great brook, within the city limits, should be built and kept in repair, as formerly, by the town, and that the
76
HISTORY OF WATERBURY.
other city bridges should be built and kept in repair by the city. This arrangement was continued, substantially, under the charter of 1871; so that the larger and more important of the city bridges are under the jurisdiction of the town. They are city bridges, however, and their history constitutes a part of the history of our city as a "highway district."
The fact that four streams pass through the city, two of them by very crooked courses, renders necessary an unusual number of bridges. Two of these streams are brooks, and are now so largely covered over or walled in and hidden away, that their existence is hardly recognized except during a freshet. But they create a demand for nine or ten bridges-small but important-and on the Mad river and the Naugatuck there are nine or ten more. So that the remark once made by a resident of Waterbury, that the City of Brass might with equal propriety be called the City of Bridges, was justified.
But little requires to be said of the bridges over Great brook. We have already (see page 69 and note) referred to those by which it was crossed near the corner of South Main and Grand streets in 1848, which were superseded in 1866 by an arched stone bridge, built, according to the arrangement then in force, by the town and not the city. The bridge on East Main street, at first of wood, was superseded by a stone arch, and some years later (in 1876) side walls were built and a covering constructed of corrugated iron. The bridge over Great brook on Meadow street was built in 1878. The bridge over Little brook on Grove street was built in 1870. The stream was walled on both sides to the width of ninety-seven feet.
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