The New International Encyclopædia/New Haven
NEW HAVEN. The county-seat of New Haven County, Conn., and the largest city of the State, situated at the head of New Haven Bay, four miles from Long Island Sound, and on the main line and several leased lines of the New York, New Haven and Hartford Railroad, 73 miles east by north of New York and 36 miles distant from Hartford, the State capital (Map: Connecticut, D 4).
New Haven is widely known as the ‘City of Elms’—these famous trees bordering many of the streets and surrounding ‘The Green,’ a public square in the heart of the town as originally laid out. The city occupies about 22½ square miles on a level plain, bounded east and west by the Quinnipiac and West rivers, and inclosed by hills, two spurs of which, East Rock and West Rock, rise to a height of 360 and 400 feet, respectively, and command fine views. East Rock is the picturesque point in an attractive park, its summit crowned by a Soldiers' and Sailors' Monument, while on the slope of West Rock is Judge's Cave, where the two regicides, Goffe and Whalley, lay in concealment for a time. There are parks overlooking the harbor and other smaller inclosures, the entire public park system comprising 1100 acres. The city has some 200 miles of streets, about 70 miles of which are paved, a large proportion with macadam, and drained by 95 miles of sewers. New Haven is the seat of Yale University (q.v.), which, with its buildings and its historical and educational prominence, is the chief attraction. There are other noteworthy educational institutions, namely, Hopkins Grammar School (founded in 1660), Hillhouse High School, Boardman Manual Training School, and a State normal school. The more important charitable institutions include the New Haven and Grace hospitals, and Saint Francis (Roman Catholic) and New Haven orphan asylums. The Public Library contains more than 52,000 volumes, and there are also valuable collections belonging to the American Oriental Society, New Haven Colony Historical Society, New Haven Orphan Asylum, State Board of Health, and the Young men's Institute. Among other features are several churches built in the early years of the nineteenth century, and the old burying-ground in Grove Street, in which are the graves of Noah Webster, Timothy Dwight, B. Silliman, Eli Whitney, Samuel F. B. Morse, Theodore Winthrop, Presidents Day, Woolsey, and Porter, James D. Dana, and W. D. Whitney.
The commercial interests of the city lie in a distributing and coastwise trade, the latter being facilitated by an excellent natural harbor, which has been greatly improved, and which was once the scene of extensive shipbuilding. New Haven ranks first among the industrial centres of the State. Its manufactures, representing, according to the census of 1900, an invested capital of $30,463,000, and having an annual production valued at $40,762,000, include carriages, clocks, firearms and ammunition, rubber goods, corsets, hardware, foundry and machine-shop products, slaughtering and meat-packing products, boxes, etc. There are also large railroad repair shops.
New Haven is the name borne by three distinct administrative corporations—the city, town, and school district of New Haven—the town being coextensive with the limits of the city; thus New Haven maintains a town and a city government. The city government is vested in a mayor, elected every two years, a bicameral council, and in administrative officers, the majority of whom are appointed by the executive, but with the following exceptions: assistant city clerk, elected by the council; and city clerk, controller, sheriff, treasurer, and collector of taxes, chosen by popular vote. New Haven spends annually, in maintenance and operation, about $1,415,000: the principal items of expense being $380,000 for schools, $190,000 for the police department, $150,000 for interest on debt, $140,000 for the fire department, $90,000 for street cleaning and sprinkling, $80,000 for municipal lighting, and $75,000 for charitable institutions. The assessed valuation of property, real and personal, is more than $115,000,000, including exemptions, and the bonded debt is over $3,750,000.
Population, in 1800, 4049; in 1850, 20,345; in 1870, 50,840; in 1880, 62,882; in 1890, 81,298; in 1900, 108,027, including 30,800 persons of foreign birth and 2900 of negro descent.
In 1637 a small company of Puritans under John Davenport, their pastor, and Theopliilus Eaton, a wealthy London merchant, arrived in Boston, and in the following year settled at New Haven, then called by the Indians Quinnipiac. Adriaen Block had previously visited the place and named it Roodenberg, probably from the reddish color of the soil. In November the new settlers bought from an Indian chief, Momanguin, a large tract of land, for which they paid “twelve coats, twelve alchymy spoons, twelve hatchets, twelve hoes, two dozen of knives, twelve porringers, and four cases of French knives and scissors.” Momanguin agreed that the Indians should not “terrify, disturb, or injure” the whites, who, in return, promised to protect the Indians and extend hunting privileges in part of the ceded territory. In December another tract thirteen miles long and ten miles wide was bought from another Indian chief, Montowese, for thirteen English coats. Immediately after landing the settlers had entered into a ‘plantation covenant,’ but a regular government was not established until the ‘Fundamental and Written Constitution’ was adopted in June, 1639. The privileges of voting and holding office were limited to church members, and the Scriptures were solemnly proclaimed as the supreme and only law in both civil and ecclesiastical affairs. Eaton was chosen as first Governor, and by successive elections was retained in this office until his death in 1658. In 1640 the settlement received its present name (from Newhaven, England), and three years later it formed with Milford, Guilford, and Stamford (Southhold, L. I., and Branford, Conn., being admitted later) a confederation known as the ‘New Haven Colony,’ which, in the same year, entered the New England Union. From 1660-64 the regicides Goffe and Whalley found shelter in and near New Haven (see above), and from 1670 to his death in 1688, another regicide, Dixwell, lived here under the name of ‘James Davids.’ In 1665, after a long and bitter struggle, the New Haven Colony was united to Connecticut under the Connecticut charter of 1662. In 1701 New Haven was made a joint capital with Hartford, and as such remained until 1873. In 1717 Yale College was moved here from Saybrook. On July 5, 1779, a British force under Generals Tryon and Garth captured the town after fighting sharp skirmishes with the inhabitants, and remained here until the 7th, having lost about 70 killed, while of the Americans 29 were killed and 17 wounded. In 1784 part of New Haven was incorporated as a city. Until its shipping trade was crippled by the Embargo and the War of 1812, New Haven was an important commercial port, but since then its energies have been devoted mainly to manufacturing. Steamboat communication with New York was opened in 1815, and the first railroad was completed in 1848. In 1856 a company left New Haven to help found Wabaunsee, Kan. Fair Haven was annexed in 1870. Consult: Lambert, History of the Colony of New Haven (New Haven, 1838); Kingsley, A Historical Discourse (ib., 1838); Barber and Punderson, History and Antiquities of New Haven (ib., 1870); Levermore, Republic of New Haven (Baltimore, 1880); Atwater, History of the City of New Haven (ib., 1887); id., History of the Colony of New Haven, new ed. (ib., 1902); Bartlett, Historical Sketches of New Haven (ib., 1897); and a brief article in Powell, Historic Towns of the New England States (New York, 1898); Blake, Chronicles of New Haven Green (New Haven, 1898); Baldwin, Stories of Old New Haven (ib., 1902); Papers of the New Haven Colony Historical Society (6 vols., ib., 1865-1900).