USA > Connecticut > New Haven County > Meriden > Years of Meriden 150: published in connection with the observance of the city's sesquicentennial, June 17-23, 1956 > Part 10
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There was still another problem for the town when Congress on March 3, 1863, approved "an act for enrolling and calling out the National forces and for other purposes," which meant that a draft was imminent.
On August 24, 1863, a special town meeting took action to meet this situation. It voted that the selectmen be authorized to pay to each man who "may be hereafter drafted into the service of the United States" the sum of $300 when mustered in. It also voted to pay to any man drafted who could furnish an acceptable substitute to serve in his own place a sum not to exceed $300 when the substitute entered the service. This was an encouragement to a practice which had already become rather common, and which
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seemed to carry no stigma, probably because there was still considerable opposition to service under compulsion.
Another town meeting on August 11, 1864, passed a resolu- tion offered by the Hon. O. H. Platt to appropriate $20,000 to encourage enlistments and pay the expenses of Meriden under the call for additional men. Up to $300 would be paid for a three-year enlistment. Only two weeks later, a town meeting raised the inducement to $600 for a three-year enlistment, and $300 for a less period, the extra money to be raised by subscription. The four banks of the town were requested to loan in equal amounts, temporarily, the funds to put the resolutions into effect.
But the war was drawing to an end. If the practice of offering bounties had continued much longer, Meriden might have bankrupted itself. The surrender of Lee to Grant at Appomattox on April 9, 1865 put an end to the fighting, and there was no longer reason to pledge the town's funds to gain new soldiers. Instead, the town could turn to the problems incident to the resumption of normal ways of life.
Many of the Civil War veterans were to become outstanding citizens of their generation. In the days ahead, they were to help promote Meriden's economic well-being, to become active in every form of business and professional life and to assist in turning the town into an incorporated city. That event was only two years in the future.
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CHAPTER SIXTEEN
City Government Before 1900
BETWEEN 1840 and 1850, the leisurely little village of Meriden was being taught to recognize some of its prospects for future growth through the advancement of its industries. In the 50's, the pace swiftened and the population practically doubled. The census of 1860 placed the figure at 7,426, which was to increase to 10,495 by 1870.
In 1866, with the Civil War in the background, the first efforts to obtain a city charter were made. It was argued that, under a charter, the community could have water works, street lights, police and fire departments, and a program of street improvement.
For the first time, there was a sense of integration in the local community, inspired in part by the veterans who had returned from the war with restless energies that sought an outlet in civic advancement. They banded with older leaders to improve con- ditions here.
On June 7, 1867, Charles Parker and 644 other local residents signed the petition for a charter, which was presented to the General Assembly for approval. The Legislature granted the charter only a little more than a month later.
The new city had an area of four square miles, and the list of taxable property was $4,415,000.
A rather complex system of local government was installed at the beginning. The city then consisted roughly of what is now the second taxing district lying within the town, and the town itself was divided into school districts, each governed by a district committee which levied and collected its own school taxes. This condition existed until July 1896, when the school districts were consolidated. But consolidation of the city and the town did not take place until January 1, 1922, after a long battle to be recorded later.
The city government at first consisted of four aldermen and 16 councilmen forming the common council. At first, there were only four wards, but later a fifth was added. In June 1924, the fifth ward was divided into two districts. In June 1927, the
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second and third wards were similarly divided, and in 1941 the fourth ward was also split into two parts, leaving the first ward the only one with a single voting place.
The new city government began at once to make city bylaws, but these were not printed until 1870 together with certain amendments to the charter to give the authority needed. The only known record of this action is preserved in the Curtis Memorial Library. A copy printed in 1875 is filed in the office of the city clerk. There are no known copies of the original charter in existence, although the common council ordered that 100 copies be published. The charter has been frequently amended and was reprinted in 1900. Another revision was printed in 1931. The bylaws have been reprinted, but no new edition of the charter has appeared since 1931.
Charles Parker, the stalwart pioneer of local industry, entered a new phase of his career as Meriden's first mayor. For him, 782 votes were cast in the first election against 17 "scattering." John H. Bario, afterward colonel of the Second Regiment, Connecticut National Guard, was elected city clerk with 808 votes in his favor, and only three "scattering." The other city officials elected were Asahel H. Curtis, treasurer; Joel H. Guy, auditor; Samuel O. Church, collector; Patrick Garvey and James E. Belden, city sheriffs. The aldermen elected were William J. Ives, Hiram Butler, George W. Lyon, and Jedediah Wilcox. Councilmen were O. B. Arnold, Lemuel J. Curtis, Charles L. Upham, Charles A. Roberts, Eli Butler, Eli Ives, Hezekiah H. Miller, Augustus C. Markham, Aaron L. Collins, Isaac C. Lewis, Jared R. Cook, Horace C. Wilcox, Dennis C. Wilcox, John Byxbee, Walter Hubbard, and Jared Lewis.
Local manufactures and other forms of business were well represented in the governing group, which contained a liberal sprinkling of veterans as well.
There was much to be done, and the new city government lost no time in going into action.
One of the first necessities was for the provision of an adequate water supply system. For this, an amendment to the new charter was found necessary. It was approved July 24, 1868. But long before that date a controversy had arisen over reservoir locations. Mayor Parker on April 6, 1868 appointed a committee to search out and recommend sites. The relative merits of West Mountain
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and Black Pond were debated vigorously.
Meriden had suffered frequent water famines, and pumping had to be done from outlying ponds. The problem of recurring water scarcity was not to be solved overnight, even after it had been approached in a concentrated and orderly manner. The West Mountain location was approved, and in June 1869 a bond issue of $20,000 at 7 per cent was authorized. Construction of Merimere, the first reservoir, was begun. By 1873, it was reported that 1,554 families were being served with water through the pipes of the new system. In 1890, Kenmere reservoir was added, and Hallmere came next in 1895. In 1905, the Taylor farm of 96 acres was purchased for additional watershed. A further important step was taken in 1907, when the city bought the Fellows farm on Johnson Hill for a storage reservoir, but the storage basin was not completed, with pumping facilities, until 1913. In the follow- ing year, pipes were connected with Kenmere, and the new set-up was ready for service. It has served satisfactorily since that time, with certain changes and improvements as water demands increased. But the largest single water source to supply Meriden had already been made available to form a link in the system.
On February 1, 1909, the Broad Brook property of 23 acres was purchased for $5,000, a bargain if there ever was one. The city appropriated $350,000 in 1913 for the development of this reservoir, which was placed in service October 2, 1916. A filtration plant was added at Broad Brook in 1927. A new pumping station was built at Kenmere in 1931.
Meanwhile, the growth of the city was making constantly increasing demands upon the water system. Insufficient water pressure on the east side was an almost constant complaint in dry seasons. Taking advantage of the plentiful labor to be obtained at low cost, with government aid, during the depression, a pumping station was built under WPA at the corner of Charles Street and Parker Avenue for the low figure of $6,205. This proved only a partial solution to the problem.
Residents on the high hills of the eastern section continued to complain of low pressure, especially during the summer months. During the administrations of Mayor Francis R. Danaher, a remedy was proposed in the form of a "Memorial" water tower, from which water could be fed by gravity to the east side. But nothing was done to place this measure in effect. Subsequently,
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it was discovered that water pipes of small diameters were impeding the flow of water. The system was overhauled at many points to replace the pipe of old mains with pipe of larger diameter. Even earlier, the work of pipe laying had not been neglected. Under FERA, 9,655 feet of pipe were laid, and WPA installed 8,438 feet. In 1933, 13,378 feet of water pipe went under the ground, water sheds were cleared, and much of the system was practically rebuilt. But there has been no let-up in the demands for more water, and the future has to be considered.
Under Mayor Henry Altobello, the problem has been inten- sively studied by state and city engineers, and an independent firm has been engaged to make a survey. The full results of that survey are still to be made known, and action awaits the final recommendations of the engineers. But one measure has been advocated repeatedly under the present administration: the con- struction of a storage basin on the summit of one of the eastern hills. The use of Black Pond water, to be fed by way of New Dam, with a hook-up to Foster Lake could keep such a basin filled, it has been argued. Measurements of the water potentials of these sources has been made. But active steps to set the project in motion have not been taken up to the time of this writing.
Many years have been spanned in this consideration of the water system. But many other phases of the city's development began in that period when Mayor Parker and his official family were wrestling with the beginning problems of city government.
Fire protection was afforded on a haphazard basis by the old volunteer companies, who fought fires vigorously, but were more concerned in competing with one another than with quenching a blaze under competent direction. Police protection was lacking, also. Unpaved streets became seas of mud after every heavy rain. The few sidewalks were crude, and afforded uncertain footing. Street lights were missing altogether. There was no system of sewers. The cesspool was only a short distance from the well in many yards. All of these conditions called for immediate correc- tion, but progress toward correcting them was slow. Mayor Parker could only make a start.
POLICE DEPARTMENT
To police Meriden in its earliest days as a city, a new department was created in September, 1868, when the common council, with
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Mayor Parker presiding, voted to replace the constabulary with a permanent and regularly paid force. The department consisted officially of a chief and three patrolmen. William Hagadon was the first chief, and under him were Roger M. Ford, George Van Nostrand and Samuel N. Beach. Beach succeeded Hagadon the first year, and served until 1876. Other chiefs in order, during the remainder of the century, were Albert I. Otis, Frank G. Bolles, Roger M. Ford, and Captain George Van Nostrand, who had been with the department from the beginning, and continued as its head until 1906, shortly before Meriden celebrated its Centennial.
The department had no headquarters when it started. The lockup was in the basement of the town hall, and was a planked-in enclosure. The chief was on duty from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m. and the patrolmen served from 6 p.m. to 6 a.m., an arrangement of shifts which could only provide the most desultory police protection. But there were no large traffic problems to be dealt with, and serious crimes occurred infrequently. At the beginning, the men wore badges but had no uniforms. The most distinguishing article of their dress was the large hat, with flaring brim upturned at the side. Each man carried a club, a revolver, and "twisters" of catgut and wood, used in place of handcuffs. The chief received $2.75 a day and the men $2.50. In 1869, soon after Chief Beach's appointment, the department was quartered in a city- owned building on Pratt Street, where the fire department was also stationed. In 1883, it was moved into a room in the Rogers Block, at East Main and South Colony Streets. Four years later, headquarters was established in the remodeled town hall.
The Gamewell signal system, by which patrolmen on beat were able to make contact with headquarters periodically, was installed in 1890, and was considered a great advance in police methods. The plodding policeman on his beat was the mainstay of the force, but the limit of his speed in pursuing criminals was the limit of his running ability. A few horses and wagons helped to raise the limit as time went on, but it was not until much later that automobiles were employed. Of course, the crooks of the last century were equally handicapped in the matter of going places in a hurry, and some Meriden policemen came to be known as fast runners.
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FIRE DEPARTMENT
The organization of a fire department was delayed for a number of years after the incorporation of the city. The event which spurred its creation was the great Meriden Britannia Company fire which broke out early in the morning of July 16, 1870. Plans had been made for a convocation of volunteer fire companies on that day, and local citizen-firemen had met the preceding evening to make plans for receiving visiting firemen from Middletown. The first sack and bucket brigade, organized in 1849, was still going strong, but more as a social body than a group of serious fire fighters. Many other outfits of a similar nature had sprung up during the years. Active in 1867 were the Washington Engine Co. No. 2, Washington Hose Co. No. 2, the E. J. Doolittle Truck Co., Parker's Engine Co. No. 3 and Parker's Hose Co. No. 3. All of these had crude equipment, with pumps operated by hand. These were connected with wells, streams, or ponds until the installation of the water system made it possible for them to draw water from city mains.
The "Big Shop" fire was first noticed shortly after 1 a.m. by the pressroom foreman of the Daily Republican, which was already being run off the press. He and the editor rushed toward State Street, where smoke had already begun to billow. The engine of a southbound train, just drawing into the station, let off its whistle in long blasts and a gong sounded somewhere within the burning plant. Meriden's volunteers came running, dragging their feeble engines, and from that time on it was a wild scramble in which the rival companies were all engaged until the police had to break it up. At first more water was poured by the firemen on themselves than on the fire. Then the pumps of Meriden Britannia went into action, but by that time it was too late. The blaze was finally under control at about 6 a.m., but the plant was wrecked. The damage to building and machinery was estimated at $250,000, most of it covered by insurance. Meriden had never seen a fire of such proportions, and the lesson was not to be ignored.
The confusion displayed by the well meaning but undisciplined volunteers on this occasion moved the Meriden Literary Recorder to comment, "If there had been any head or tail to the fire depart- ment, if John Byxbee or Charlie Warner had been chief engineer,
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the fire would have been extinguished."
The words were prophetic, for John C. Byxbee became chief engineer when a paid fire department was installed in 1873. He received $500 a year, and was chief for two years. Edward A. Roark succeeded him. Other chiefs of the century's last quarter included Linus Moses, John F. Butler, Isaac B. Hyatt, Owen Horan and John Tracy. Tracy, who became chief in 1893, introduced white rubber coats and hats for the men of the department to distinguish them in the groups that always gathered at fires. The first horses to be used for drawing apparatus were stabled at the Charter Oak fire house. Hyatt was the only chief to serve twice. After resigning in 1888, he came back to the department in 1890, and was reappointed chief after a turn of the city administration in 1894.
Frank L. Cowing was made chief shortly before 1900 and served until his death in 1903. William L. Lucas, who had grown up with the department, succeeded him. By 1906, Meriden had a department consisting of 91 men. There were 16 fire horses to pull the heavy equipment, and 9,000 feet of hose. The apparatus then consisted of one hook-and-ladder truck, one Silsby steam fire engine, four hose wagons, and the chief's wagon. One two- wheeled hose pumper was held in reserve. The total property was valued at $100,000. There were few changes in this picture until the introduction of motorized apparatus and the beginning of a whole new era in the development of more effective fire-fighting methods. But the fire companies, since the humiliating lessons of the Meriden Britannia fire, have always done well. Chief Byxbee, when he took charge, instituted the ward system of fire alarms. The Britannia Shop's big gong sounded one, two, three or four times to indicate in which of the four divisions the fire was located. In 1881, a fire-alarm telegraph system was introduced. St. Andrew's Church bell was used at first. Later a tower bell was installed at the old firehouse on Pratt Street. E. B. Baker, then manager of the Southern New England Telephone Company, was the first fire-alarm superintendent.
STREETS
There were no paved streets in Meriden until the nineties. Photographs taken between 1870 and 1894 show the rutted, muddy or dusty surface of the principal thoroughfares even in
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CITY GOVERNMENT BEFORE 1900
the center of the city. In 1894, Belgian block paving was laid on West Main Street. The blocks were of creosoted wood, and were especially slippery in wet weather, but they were a great improve- ment over the gravel which had been used previously. The blue- stone blocks employed for crossings at intersections were re- moved. In 1897, Hanover Street was paved, and the next year the whole "Corner" section was macadamized. Colony Street was paved in 1899, partly with asphalt and partly with Belgian block. In 1901, paving was completed on State Street. For the East Main Street hill, brick paving was selected, which remained in place for many years. The trolley tracks in the center of the street, where they abutted the bricks, were traps for automobile wheels, and caused frequent skids.
Paving bonds to the amount of $200,000 were authorized by the Legislature in 1913. State Street was widened in 1914 near its intersection with East Main Street. A permanent paving program was instituted at that time, and many streets where paving was badly worn, were repaved. Another extensive program was approved and carried out in 1931, when East and West Main Streets, Hanover, Pratt, State, and Crown Streets and Cook Avenue were completely resurfaced. For the next decade, most of the work on streets was done as part of WPA projects. In 1941, practically all that was left of the old brick paving was removed and replaced with composition paving. Rails left from the era of trolley street transportation were buried or taken away.
A new road between Chesire and Meriden was opened in 1929. The Chamberlain Highway between Meriden and New Britain, named for former Gov. Abiram Chamberlain, a native of Meriden, was opened in 1935, and the Westfield road was rebuilt the same year. In 1941, the construction of a four-lane parkway from North Broad Street to the Berlin line began. Eventually this route was widened all the way to Hartford. The Wilbur Cross Parkway, joining Route 5 into Hartford, was constructed during the 40's, and took the bulk of through passenger-car traffic away from Broad Street, although truck traffic continues to follow the old route where the stagecoaches once ran. Efforts to obtain state aid for the construction of an east-west by-pass of the city, to relieve the steadily increasing traffic congestion on East and West Main Streets, have so far been unavailing. The State Highway Depart- ment has refused to give this proposal priority in its program.
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Repeated efforts have been made to induce action by the Legisla- ture on the project, but all have fallen flat.
SEWAGE DISPOSAL
No attempt was made at the time when the city was incorpor- ated to provide a municipal system of waste disposal. Not until 20 years later was the first action taken in this direction. In 1887, the common council ordered the first sewers installed on Main and Veteran Streets, but the vote to establish a sewer system was recorded September 23, 1891. On November 13 of that year, the city bought 150 acres of land in South Meriden for sewer beds, and the contract to construct the beds was let May 26, 1892. These beds served, with little further improvement, until complaints were made in the 30's that the Quinnipiac River was being contaminated from underground seepage. In 1937, the present sewage reduction plant was built, and opened March 18, 1938. The growth of Meriden since World War II has overtaxed the system of sewers. One of the questions now confronting the city is that of a complete overhauling of the system, and the construction of a new plant for final disposal. It is a question which calls for an answer in the near future.
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CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
The Spanish War
THE PEACEFUL life of Meriden residents in the 90's was interrupted by the Spanish War, which began in 1898. The sinking of the U. S. battleship Maine in Havana Harbor, February 15, 1898, made banner headlines in newspapers across the country. Indigna- tion was almost universal, and the event was feverishly discussed in many Meriden homes. War sentiment gathered rapidly. President William McKinley demanded the withdrawal of Spain from Cuba. A blockade of Cuban ports was placed in effect on April 24. The next day, Congress declared that a state of war had existed since April 21.
Company L, consisting of Meriden volunteers, was organized under Capt. Charles B. Bowen in the summer of 1898, with Delbert Jones as first lieutenant and Raymond Keeney as second lieutenant. It was assigned to the First Connecticut Regiment and mustered into service in July at the town hall. The company was then transferred to Fort Knox, Maine for training, and was sent from there to Niantic. It wound up in Camp Alger, Virginia, where the local volunteers remained until their return to Connecticut, where they were mustered out on October 31. Although not actually engaged in combat at any period of their service, the men of Company L underwent many trials, for conditions in military camps during the war were far from what they should have been. Rations were indescribably bad. Sanitary conditions were even worse. Many in the local company became ill, and some of them felt the after-effects for years.
The Spanish War has been minimized in some accounts through comparison with some of the other conflicts in which this country has engaged, but it was serious enough for those who had a part in it. Followed by the Philippine insurrection, it lasted for four years and two months, compared with four years for the Civil War and one year and seven months for World War I. In it, 450,000 of our troops were engaged, exceeding the number in the Revolutionary War, the Mexican War and the War of 1812. Losses in deaths from all causes were 4.3 per cent as compared
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THE SPANISH WAR
with six-tenths of one per cent for the Civil War. These statistics and others were furnished by Captain Charles B. Bowen Camp, United Spanish War Veterans when it held an anniversary observance April 25, 1936.
Since the death of the last Meriden veteran of the Civil War, the Spanish War veterans are the senior group among all organi- zations of veterans, and wear their responsibilities with becoming vigilance and patriotic fervor in spite of their diminishing numbers. There has been no event in commemoration of Meriden's participation in the various wars in which these members of U. S. W. V. have not played an organizational and inspirational role.
The Bowen Camp was organized in 1900, and became affiliated with the U. S. W. V. on April 18, 1904. The organizers were mainly men of Company L, but the group also included men who had served in Cuba, the Philippines, Puerto Rico and China, as well as in the U. S. Navy and various camps in addition to Camp Alger.
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