loyal to good government as when the third State House was opened
for the inauguration of Governor Tomlinson, the " election day "
customs and demonstrations are of quite a different character from
what then existed. For days before the great annual event, the
ladies of New Haven households made preparation for showing hos-
pitality to the "stranger within our gates." Election cake was
baked, the demijohns were refilled and the door-plates and knockers
were made bright by rubbing with rotten stone, which as a commod-
ity has long ago disappeared. Everybody kept holiday. Everybody
treated or was treated and there was much jollity and consumption
of good liquors. Country cousins crowded into the town for the
double purpose of seeing the goings on and doing their annual trad-
ing. The heart of the whole community beat in sympathetic glad-
ness in this exemplification of the fact that the people knew how



THE HISTORY OF THE STATE HOUSE. 21

to govern themselves and with " none to molest or make them
afraid."

The first number of the New Haven FaHadii/fn made its appear-
ance the 7th of September, 1829. It was devoted to literature,
politics and miscellaneous reading, and it reported once a week, the
arrivals and departures of boats on the canal. At this time A. H.
Maltby was selling the beautiful " annuals " or gift books, first
published in London, the like of which will never be printed again.
Hardly any young girl was so friendless in those days that she had
not lying on a table in the best room of the house, a copy with gilt
edges, bound in handsomely colored leather, of " The Religious
Souvenir," " The Amaranth," " The Christmas Keepsake," or some
equally attractive book, in which were to be found lovely engravings.
Those books were then very much in fashion. L. Stillman kept a
furniture store on Orange street, a few rods south of the New Haven
Bank; Hull, Townsend, Knevals & Co. were dry goods dealers and
merchant tailors ; Munson & Co. carried on engraving in Bradley's
building, corner of State and Chapel streets ; James Punderford
dealt in leather, on Chapel Street ; J. L. Cross sold Sunday-school
books ; George Robinson and Elford E. Jarman, respectively, kept
dry goods stores ; Lines & Clinton carried on the furniture business
on State, a few rods north of Chapel street ; Benjamin Beecher,
Jr., sold -furniture at the old stand of Beecher &: Osborne ; M. Ao
Durand kept a medicine store ; D, Ritter & Son made marble monu-
ments. Other business concerns were those of Durrie & Peck, pub-
lishers of books ; H. (Sc L. Hotchkiss, building material ; William
Barker, boots and shoes; McCrackan »& Jarman, dry goods. The
Palladium, which made war against the selling of lottery tickets,
advanced the opinion that more money was paid into the six lottery
offices on Church street than was received by all the dry goods
stores of the city. It was in December of this year that a number of
New Haven men memorialized Congress in opposition to Sunday
mails, and that a lot on Sodom Hill was selected as a site for the
State Hospital.



RETROSPECTIVE.

Over thirty years ago a young man came to the city to seek his fortune and
has been seeking it ever since. There have been changes in thirty-three years.
In 1856 there were no horse cars and Grand street was not an avenue. The
Chapel Street Church stood on one corner of Chapel and Union streets, and
opposite was the Post Office, where Prelate Demick cut sheets of postage stamps
with shears. E. L. Ives sold toys, confectionery and small beer in the Adelphi,
and on the fourth corner was the Depot. There were dwelling houses on Chapel
street between State and Church, and the State House stood on the upper Green.
All is changed now. The State House exists only in the minds of the people.
The old depot still stands, but in place of the hundreds who entered its then gloomy
portals, bound for different destinations, all now enter its cheerful front to
patronize

X B. JUDSON,

The People's Fruiterer.



Y.F.^cJHeil&G©.



* ^ 1 ^^ ^^



82 Church St., New Haven, Ct.



â–  THE tllSTORY OF THE STATE HOUSE. 23

An animated and far-reaching agitation on the subject of Free-
masonry, engaged the attention of all classes of citizens in 1830.
Able writers flooded the newspapers with arguments for and against
the Order, and the strong feeling engendered came near making
grave trouble in this community. The discussions had a political
bearing, and the question as to who should be the prominent men in
the General Assembly was involved. The good judgment of the
members of the Order prevailed after a time, in disentangling the
public mind, and from that date to this. Freemasonry has flourished
without alarming the friends of a republican form of government.

The Superior Court for this county, Judge Bissell on the bench,
moved into the State House, January 25, 183 1. Those who were
deterred from attending court, by the dampness and darkness of the
basement room under the Methodist Church, on the Green, near the
corner of Elm and College streets, now found warm, light, agreeable
quarters. In the spring of that year, a number of the friends of
Henry Clay and his American system of protection, held a meeting
in the State House, at which a number of eloquent speeches were
made. The Presidential ticket was Henry Clay, with John Sergeant
for Vice-President. At one of these Clay meetings, held in the build-
ing, printed invitations were circulated, asking the democratic friends
of Mr. Clay, in the Legislature, to be present, and a number of them
favorably responded. The Superior Court in 1832, Judge Daggett on
the bench, sent to State's prison, one Joseph Swift, for fifteen years,
he having stolen a little clothing from three different houses. -The
same judge at the same court sentenced Silas Gorton to eight years
for forgery, and Henry Pierre, a boy aged sixteen years, to three
years for burglary.

There was a grand celebration of the one-hundredth anniversary
of Washington's birthday, February 22, 1832. There was an oration
in the North Church by a Mr. Clay, a senior of Yale College. At
II o'clock in the forenoon, Rev. Mr. Fisk made an address at the
City Hall. At noon, one hundred guns were fired on the Green. In
the procession were soldiers of the Revolutionary war, the Clergy, the



24 THE HISTORY OF THE STATE HOUSE.

City Corporation and the Mechanics' Society. The line was formed
at the State House, under command of Adjutant Henry Hotchkiss,
and the march was through Chapel and Church streets, to the Cen-
ter Church, under military escort, consisting of the Artillery, Captain
Francis ; Grays, Captain Stone ; Guards, Captain Merriman, and the
Westville Artillery, Captain Pendleton. There was a dinner at the
Franklin House at which General Dennis Kimberly presided.
There was also on this great day, a rival celebration, Hon. Noyes
Darling presiding at the dinner in Washington Hall. There was no
celebration that year of the Fourth of July, owing principally to the
public distress, on account of the reports that cholera had appeared
in New York. But Prof. Silliman gave an address on African
Colonization, and there was an oration in the North Church by a
Yale student named Colton. The colonization of the colored people
in Liberia was the project of many "worthy men, who hoped that by
purchasing the Southern slaves, and otherwise assisting in their
emancipation, and sending them to Africa, they might prevent the
troubles', which were finally settled by the awful war fought between
the North and South, more than a quarter of a century ago. There
is standing in Grove Street Cemetery a monument to Ashmun, the
first Colonial Agent at Liberia, after whom Ashmun street was
named.

The Legislature, having taken action regarding the repair of the
State House, the Common Council. of New Haven, the Mayor being
Henry C. Flagg, appointed Isaac H. Townsend, Henry T. Huggins
and Henry Peck in 1838, to see what was best to be done. The
city also voted one hundred dollars toward the expense of the work.
Mr. Peck and Leander Parmelee were a part of the committee
appointed by the Legislature to attend to the repairs. The handsome
new coat of stucco which was afterward applied to the exterior walls
excited much interest among New Haven masons. There was a
secret about the coloring of the imaginary blocks — the walls were
lined out to resemble blocks of differenr colored stone, and this
secret was preserved by the man who did the work. He marked out



THE HISTORY OF THE STATE HOUSE 2%

the blocks and laid on the color immediately on ihe rough stucco,
and the effect was admirable. It was the only building in the city
so treated.

More than twenty years ago, the subject of building a new and
handsome State House was agitated among men prominent in local
affairs. In 1857 Governor Holley wrote a letter to the Common
Council upon the topic, and Mayor Philip S. Galpin, and Aldermen
Fitch, Welch and Blake were appointed a committee to take it into
consideration. The letter cannot now be found among the city's
papers of that year. 71iat there ought to be but one capital, had
been for a long time the opinion of public economists. The incon-
venience and expense of transporting the books, treasures and
archives of the Stale from Hartford to this city and back again, every
alternate year, were frequently mentioned by members of the Legis-
lature, and it was foreboded that the time must come when there
would be a strife between this city and Hartford, as to which city
should be the sole capital. The conservative spirit of New Haven
was so exercised as to lose the honor of being the chosen seat of
government. A full review of all the discussions, votes, arguments,
appropriations of money would require a great deal of space, and do
no good. The ill feeling caused and fostered by the warfare for
supremacy in this matter has nearly vanished, and soon, all visible
reminders of the unhappy struggle will have disappeared.

Some of the lozenge-shaped ornamentations of the eaves of the
recently destroyed building have been secured by young ladies as
standards for memorial pin-cushions, and citizens have bought for
memorials, pieces of the marble which were a part of the steps of
the building, or of the veneering of the basement walls. Part of the
brick and stone has gone into the walls of new buildings in different
parts of the city. Among the purchasers of the old marble steps
were a number of citizens who wanted them for relics, and others
who wanted them for curbing in their respective family lots in the dif-
ferent cemeteries. Among the buyers was Prof. Othniel C. Marsh of
the Peabody Museum, who proposed to utilize them in making a ter-



26 THE HISTORY OF THE STATE HOUSE.

race at his homestead. John G. North bought some of the stones on
which he frequently stood while addressing large audiences from the
north portico, on the subject of temperance and good morals, in the
times when the porch of the building was used for similar purposes
to those which gave interest to the forum of ancient Rome. More
than one thousand of the bricks were purchased for preservation by
friends of the State House, and some have been handsomely painted
or gilded.

In consequence of the passage of a resolution by the General
Assembly, in May, 1865, the Common Council appointed a com-
mittee consisting of E. C. Scranton, H. M. Welch, William W.
Boardman, Charles R. Ingersoll, Dexter R. Wright, Minott A. Osborn
and Lucius Gilbert, who reported to the latter body the following,
which was passed :

" That in the opinion of the Court of Common Council of the City of New
Haven, if it shall be thereunto duly authorized by the General Assembly, will
undertake to build within the limits of said city, for the use of the State, a new
State House, suitable in every respect for the purpose of such a building, and
creditable in its proportions, construction and finish, to the State and to the city."

Hon. Henry B. Harrison spoke at length, urging immediate action
by the city. Messrs.' Scranton and W^right also spoke to the same
effect and on the importance of continuing New Haven as one of the
capitals. The people of Hartford were alert and active in their
efforts to have Hartford made the sole capital. A great deal was
done by both cities to secure the advantage. At a Common Council
meeting, February 4, 1867, the following was presented :

" Whereas, The Legislature of the State of Connecticut at its May session, 1866,
passed the following resolution ; to wit :

^'' Resolved by this Assembly : That the Governor, Lieutenant-Governor, John T.
Wait, of Norwich, Nathaniel Wheeler, of Bridgeport, and William H. Barnum, of
Salisbury, and George Beach, of Hartford, be ajjpointed commissioners to enquire
into the present condition of the State Houses at New Haven and Hartford, and
the expediency of erecting new State Houses for the proper accommodation of the
General Assembly and the various State offices, and with this object to confer with



THE HISTORY OF THE STATE HOUSE. 2/

the authorities of the cities of New Haven and Hartford and estimate the probable
expense to the State of such new State Houses, and make report of their doings
with such recommendations as they may deem fit to the General Assembly."

Following the foregoing action, the Common Council of New-
Haven passed a vote by which the mayor, the aldermen from each
ward and Councilmen Twiss, White, McGuire, Hoadley, McMuUen
and Peck were appointed a committee on behalf of the city. This
committee were timidly apprehensive that by the exercise of superior
diplomacy or offers of a most liberal character, the city of Hartford
would succeed in having the Constitution so amended that there
would be but one capital and one State House. They reported, May
6, 1867, " That they have not gone into an examination of the above
named topics in detail, and are riot prepared to propose any specific
measures in relation thereto. The subject more particularly dis-
cussed by your committee was the larger and more comprehensive
one (which in effect includes the subject matter of the resolution
before the committee) viz.: the proposed amendment to the Consti-
tution contained in a preamble and resolution passed June 27, 1866.
The preamble here referred to is a statement of the expediency of
having but one State capital, and the resolution is designed to effect
that object under certain conditions and terms therein specified.
Now your committee beg leave to offer that the expediency of the
proposed change is by no means clear to them. On the contrary,
they entertain very serious doubts of the expediency of consolidating
the present arrangement of our State capitals into one, thus opening
the door to sectional rivalry and local jealousies, and bringing a new
element of discord into the politics of the State, and certainly divest-
ing one of the existing capitals of an honorable distinction which it
has borne from the early colonial days, — a distinction which will not
be cheerfully resigned by either of the cities of New Haven or Hart-
ford, nor is it by any means clear to your committee that the possible
advantages to be derived from the proposed amendment, to any of
the inhabitants of the State, will offset the obvious and foreseen ten-
dencies to evil to those portions of the State more immediately con-



THE HISTORY OF THE STATE HOUSE. 2g

cerned in securing tiie capital. While, then, we are not prepared to
assent to the expediency of the measure as stated in the preamble to
the resolution offered as an amendment to our State Constitution and
passed by the Legislature June 27, 1866, which is in substance to
establish a single capital, still we would recommend that the city of
New Haven stand on the defensive, as to its position as one of the
capitals of the State, and that we should not quietly yield our birth-
right in case the present Legislature should submit the proposed
amendment to the popular vote. We therefore offer the following
AOle :

" Resolved, That while we question the expediency of proposing on the part of
the Legislature or of the adoption by the people of the preamble and resolution
touching the State capitals, passed June 27, 1866, still we will in the event of this
adoption as an amendment to the Constitution, accept the conditions of said
amendment, and will use all honorable means to make the largest city of our state
its worthy and sole capital."

This report was signed by Ex-Mayor L. W. Sperry, as chairman.
The Common Council accepted the report and adopted the resolu-
tion. The struggle had been commenced in earnest. On the 25th of
April, 1870, a committee consisting of Mayor Henry G. Lewis,
Alderman Bradley, Councilmen Piatt and Ingersoll, Hon. Morris
Tyler and Hon. Lucien W. Sperry, was appointed on this business,
and July 18, 187 1, a resolution was passed, that if the State would
appropriate $500,000 the city would furnish a proper site for its loca-
tion without expense to the State. Much more liberal offers were
needed than this, although New Haven did not apprehend the truth
and was not of a sufficiently expansive and forecasting mind to dis-
cern the public spirit and sagacity which afterward led the people of
our sister city to pour out money like water in furtherance of their
desire to be the sole capital. With Hartford managers there was no
limit to be considered as regarded a future expenditure of money for
a State House building, nor any hampering consideration of lobby
expenses. The cost of victory was entirely overlooked, and doubt-
less the Hartford taxpayers were well satisfied to burden themselves



30 THE HISTORY OF THE STATE HOUSE.

and their posterity with debt, in order to secure the coveted prize.
The history of most of the cities of this country appears to establish
the conclusion that it is not advantageous to any community lo
have the special benefits of the location of governmental institu-
tions in their midst. There are no finer natural seaport advantages
than are found at Portsmouth, New Hampshire. Its harbor is
ample for any volume of commerce ; but the people of the town
have learned to shape their destinies by the interests of their navy-
yard, and there is no enterprise in them. So, too, Albany, while the
capital of the great State of New York, is not so enterprising a city
as Rochester, but is somewhat dependent upon its State House affil-
iations and contracts for its business profits. Any citizen taking an
interest in the welfare of New Haven, will find by studying census
reports, much to console him for the loss of the State House. He
will perceive that the wealth and prosperity of the city could not be
enhanced by a restoration of the old arrangement of two capitals.

For one hundred and seventy-four years New Haven was one
of the capitals of the State. On the day of the great celebration of
the fifth semi-centennial of the settlement of New Haven, the orator
of the occasion, Henry T. Blake, said :

" From the time when in 1663 the New Haven colony suddenly found herself
already annexed to the jurisdiction of her wide awake rival, an unremitting vigi-
lance was always necessary on her part, though not always exercised and not
often successful, to secure the few crumbs of privilege and opportunity which fell
on our side of the family table. There were early contests about the half-capital
question and on the removal of the college, and later ones about canal extensions
and railroad extensions and Connecticut river bridges, and others too numerous to
mention. But these had all gone by and there remained on the placid surface of
New Haven equanimity, not a ripple from the last family breeze. In 1869
appeared the first symptom of trouble. The Legislature became discontented
with its accommodations, both at New Haven and Hartford."

At the risk of adverse criticism, the chronological continuity of
this history is interrupted for the purpose of finding place for some
of the recollections of elderly citizens who took part in building the



THE HISTORY OP THE STATE HOUSE. 3 1

structure now demolished. There are but few men living who
helped to build the last of New Haven's State Houses. Mr. Frank
Collins, of Chicago, over eighty years of age, visited New England
the present summer. He did considerable of the work on the large,
massive doors at the north and south ends of the building. Mr.
Collins was by trade a pattern maker and an accomplished worker in
wood. He was the gentleman who made the pattern for the tasteful
iron fence around the Green, and which some public spirited citizens
hope to see removed, in furtherance of a plan to have the Green con-
verted into a modern public park. Availing herself of the oppor-
tunity offered by the destruction of the building, a daughter of Mr.
Collins came into possession of enough of the wood in one of the
doors to make a walking cane for her father. Hon. James E. English,
one of the most respected and wealthiest of New Haven's citizens,
worked on the same doors, he being then apprenticed to the late
Atwater Treat. Ex-Governor English, Knight Read, and Willis Booth
helped make the seats in the hall of Representatives. Quick work
was necessary as the committee in charge were afraid that the seats
would not be finished in season for the assembling of the Legislature.

Mr. William J. Thompson of George street, this city, seventy-five
years of age, has an excellent memory, and from him have been
obtained interesting facts connected with the building of the third
New Haven State House in 1829. Abner Bradley, of Woodbridge,
was foreman of the stone layers ; Deacon Isaac Thompson acted as
superintendent ; Charles Thompson had the contract for some part
of the joiner-work, and built the stairs leading from the main hall to
the floor above. He died July 9th of this year, the day that William
J. Montgomery signed the contract with the city to remove the build-
ing, and the same day that work was commenced in pulling down
the north steps. Mr. Thompson grieved at the decision of the
Common Council, and it has been thought that his regret may have
contributed to a shortening of his life.

John Peck, Miles Barber, William Bradley and others did the
plastering in the Representatives' chamber, the latter having learned



32 THE HISTORY OF THE STATE HOUSE.

his trade under the tuition of Deacon Isaac Thompson. William
and Isaac Thompson had the contract for all of the inside plastering
except ni the Senate chamber. Arbitration was resorted to in the
settlement of the accounts for this part of the work. John E.
Bassett, the Chapel Street hardware merchant, recollects something
of the discussion pending the settlement. He says that it was told
him that one of the workmen, George Gill, an Englishman, testifying
before the arbitrators, said, in answer to a question, that the instruc-
tions from the architect, Mr. Town, had been to do the work as
cheaply as possible and have it answer the purpose. This informa-
tion is supposed to have displeased Mr. Town, inasmuch as he did
not speak to Gill for a long time after the arbitration. Some of the
plastering fell after the work was finished, and Mr. Gill was asked if
he could tell why there was so much weakness at that particular
place, to which he answered : '* Do you suppose it would fall e\ery-
where else at the same time ? "

Mr. Edwin Marble, formerly a merchant and for some years inter-
ested in the manufacture of carriages, saw the first stone of the foun-
dation of New Haven's third State House placed in position. The
first burying ground of the town was opened in the central part of
the Green which is west of Temple Street. *The Center Church
covers a portion of the ground, which extended eastwardly beyond
the church, and it was used as a burial place from 1638 to 1796.
The plot used for making graves was octagonal in shape and was in
time surrounded by a board fence, painted red. Such was the
strong feeling of the people at building the third State House above
the remains of the founders of the town buried there, that they com-
j)elled the workmen to place flat stones over the graves. The cem-
etery being on rising ground, whenever there was a heavy rainfall
deep gullies were formed between the graves, and Mr. Marble in
boyhood skated on the ice formed in these gullies, all the way to
Temple from near College street and over the flooded part of the
eastern section of the Green, as far as Ogden's coffee house, which
formerly stood on the land covered at this dav by the Tontine Hotel,



THE HISTORY OF THE STATE HOUSE. 33