The city of New Haven, the most populous in Connecticut, having a
hundred thousand people, is built upon a plain, surrounded by hills,
at the head of a deep bay extending several miles northward from Long
Island Sound. The magnificent elms, arching over the streets and the
Public Green, and grandly rising in stately rows, make the earliest
and the deepest impression upon the visitor. In one of his most
eloquent passages, Henry Ward Beecher said that the elms of New
England are as much a part of her beauty as the columns of the
Parthenon were the glory of its architecture. The grand foliage-arched
avenues of New Haven are unsurpassed elsewhere, so that they are the
crowning glory as well as the constant care of the townsfolk. Among
the finest is the avenue separating the Yale College grounds from the
Public Green--a magnificent Gothic aisle of the richest
foliage-covered interlacing boughs. The Indian name for the region
round about New Haven was Quinnepiack, and the placid Quinnepiack
River, coming from the northward, flows through a deep valley past the
towering East Rock into the harbor. Old John Davenport was the leader
and first pastor of the infant colony that settled here. He was a
powerful Anglican parish pastor of London who had joined the Puritans,
and in 1637 was forced to leave for New England with many of his
people. They spent a year in Boston, but in April, 1638, sailed around
Cape Cod to the Sound, and landed at Quinnepiack, where they laid out
a town plan with nine squares for buildings, surrounding a large
central square, the Public Green. At the foundation, Davenport
delivered a most impressive sermon from the text, "Wisdom hath builded
her house; she hath hewn out her seven pillars;" and from this came
the original scheme of government for the colony by the seven leading
church members, who were known as the "seven pillars." The colony got
on well with the Indians, who revered Davenport, calling him "so big
study man." They bought the whole tract of one hundred and thirty
square miles from the Indians for thirteen coats. At first, however,
they did not prosper, their trading ventures proving unfortunate, and
they determined to abandon the place and remove elsewhere, selecting
Jamaica, and afterwards Galloway in Ireland. The ship carrying their
prospectors to Ireland sailed in January, 1647, but was never heard
from afterwards, save when, as the legend has it, "the spectre of the
ship sailed into the harbor in the teeth of a head-wind, and when in
full view of the anxious people, it slowly melted into thin air and
vanished." Then they decided to remain, and getting on better, in 1665
united their plantation with that of Connecticut at Hartford, under
the condition that each should be a capital, a compact observed until
1874, when Hartford was made the sole capital. The British in July,
1779, attacked and partly burnt and plundered the town, the Americans
galling them by desultory attacks as they passed through the streets.
They captured Rev. Naphtali Daggett, President of Yale College, musket
in hand, and with repeated bayonet-thrusts forced him to guide them.
When he was wearied and sore from wounds they asked, "Will you fight
again?" He sturdily answered, "I rather believe I shall if I have an
opportunity." Being forced to pray for the King, he did it thus: "O
Lord, bless thy servant King George, and grant him wisdom, for thou
knowest, O Lord, he needs it."
The great fame of New Haven comes from Yale College, having two
hundred and fifty instructors and over twenty-five hundred students,
the orthodox Congregational University of New England, which for two
centuries has exerted a most advantageous and widely diffused
influence upon the American intellectual character, and around it and
its multitude of buildings of every kind clusters the town. In the
year 1700 ten clergymen planned to have a college in the colony of
Connecticut, and for the purpose contributed as many books as they
could spare for its library. In 1701 it was chartered, and began in a
very small way at Saybrook, at the mouth of Connecticut River, during
the first year having only one student. The pastor of the adjacent
village of Killingworth was placed in charge, and for several years
the students went there to him, though the commencements were held at
Saybrook, and in 1707 the college was located at Saybrook.
Subsequently, for a more convenient location, it was removed to New
Haven, the first commencement being held there in 1718, and its first
building being named Yale College, in honor of Elihu Yale, a native of
the town, born in 1648, who went abroad, and afterwards became
Governor of the East India Company. He made at different times gifts
of books and money amounting to about five hundred pounds sterling,
the benefactions being of greater value because of their timeliness.
His name was afterwards adopted in the incorporation of the
university. Timothy Dwight and Theodore D. Woolsey were perhaps the
greatest Presidents of Yale, and among its graduates were Jonathan
Edwards, Eli Whitney, Samuel F. B. Morse, Benjamin Silliman, Noah
Webster, John C. Calhoun, J. Fenimore Cooper, James Kent, William M.
Evarts, John Pierpont and Samuel J. Tilden. The College buildings are
of various ages and styles of architecture, the original ones being
the plain "Old Brick Row" on College Street, northwest of the Public
Green, behind which what was formerly a large open space has been
gradually covered with more modern structures. The line of ancient
buildings facing the Green has a venerable and scholarly aspect,
stretching broadly across the greensward, fronted by noble elms
arranged in quadruple lines along the street. One of these houses,
Connecticut Hall, was built with money raised by a lottery, and from
the proceeds of a French prize-ship in the colonial wars, when
Connecticut aided the King by equipping a frigate. There are on the
campus statues of the first rector, Abraham Pierson, President Woolsey
and Professor Silliman. Various elaborate buildings are also upon
adjacent grounds, such as the Peabody Museum, the Sheffield Scientific
School, of four halls; the Divinity Halls, Observatory, Laboratory and
Gymnasium, while the entrance to the campus from the Public Green is
by an imposing tower-gateway known as Phelps Hall. The Peabody Museum
has one of the best natural-history collections in the country, and
the College Library approximates three hundred thousand volumes.
Besides the Academic Department, Yale has schools of Science, Law,
Medicine, Theology and the Fine Arts, and its properties and
endowments exceed $10,000,000, the grounds occupying nine acres.